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.

<p>Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group is a leading U.S. utility company providing regulated electricity and natural gas, as well as renewable and nonregulated energy services through subsidiaries across Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. The company operates a diverse generation portfolio including coal, natural gas, nuclear, oil, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biomass. It is actively investing in renewable energy and grid modernization, with plans to invest $9.1 billion through 2029 to expand solar, wind, and energy storage capacity. WEC Infrastructure owns a fleet of renewable generation facilities in states from South Dakota to Texas. WEC was founded as the Wisconsin Energy Corp. in 1896.&nbsp;</p>

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.

The energy company primarily serves its home state of Wisconsin and neighboring states, with over 4 million electric and gas customers in all.

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

F500-2020-416-WEC-Energy-Group

A natural gas and electricity supplier, WEC provides energy to 4.5 million people in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota.

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.

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Get insights into WEC Energy Group including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

WEC Energy Group (WEC): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

WEC Energy Group

wec energy group

Good afternoon, and welcome to WEC Energy Group's Conference Call for 4th Quarter and Year End 2024 Results. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast and all participants are in a listen only mode at this time. After the presentation, the conference will be open to analysts for questions and answers. In conjunction with this call, a package of detailed financial information is posted at wecenergygroup.com. A replay will be available approximately 2 hours after the conclusion of this call.

Before the conference call begins, please note that all statements in the presentation other than historical facts are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change at any time. Such statements are based on management's expectations at the time they are made. In addition to the assumptions and other factors referred to in connection with the statements, factors described in WEC Energy Group's latest Form 10 ks and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated. During the discussions, referenced earnings per share will be based on diluted earnings per share unless otherwise noted. This call also will include non GAAP financial information.

The company has provided reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the materials posted on its website for this conference call. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce Scott Lauber, President and Chief Executive Officer of WEC Energy Group.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we review our results for calendar year 2024. Here with me are Shao Liu, our Chief Financial Officer and Beth Straka, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. As you saw from our news release this morning, we reported full year 2024 adjusted earnings of $4.88 a share. I am pleased to report that we delivered another year of solid results on virtually every meaningful measure from customer satisfaction to financial performance to steady execution of our capital plan. In just a few minutes, Shaul will provide more details on our financial results and outlook.

For 2025 earnings, recall that in early December, we provided our guidance in the range of 5 point $1.7 to $5.27 a share. We continue to target a 6.5% to 7% long term compound annual growth rate. We have a robust capital plan driven by strong economic growth in our region. The Wisconsin unemployment rate stands at 3%, continuing a long running trend below the national average. And as we discussed, there have been many exciting developments along the I-ninety four corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago.

In December, less than a year after Eli Lilly acquired a facility in Pleasant Prairie, the pharmaceutical company announced plans for a $3,000,000,000 expansion. Eli Lilly predicts the expansion will add 750 highly skilled jobs in addition to 2,000 construction jobs to complete the project. Microsoft is making good progress on its large data center complex in Southeast Wisconsin. Work continues on the first phase of the project. Microsoft took a short pause on construction to evaluate the technical design of the second area.

That pause was lifted and work has resumed. Microsoft is still reviewing designs for the 3rd area. Microsoft reports that the potential design changes have not affected plans to invest $3,300,000,000 in the project by the end of 2026 and we do not anticipate these changes will impact our capital plan or demand growth projections over the next 5 years. In fact, Microsoft purchased an additional 2 40 acres of land just last week for another data center development. We're delighted that Microsoft continues to expand its commitment to the Milwaukee region.

Also in January, Cloverleaf announced plans to develop approximately 1700 acres in Port Washington, just north of Milwaukee for another large data center campus. Cloverleaf projects that construction could start this fall. In the initial announcement, Cloverleaf expects the load to be 1 gigawatt. This development is very in the very early stages, but all this load is incremental to our current plan. So we're off to a strong start to the year with great economic prospects.

To serve a growing economy, of course, we need to continue investing in our generation facility and infrastructure. Our $28,000,000,000 5 year capital plan, which we update in October is the largest in our history. A balanced generation mix is a significant focus for our electric utilities. In the renewable area over the next 5 years, we have 4,300 megawatts planned for our expected investment of $9,100,000,000 We wrapped up 2024 by bringing the Paris Solar Park into service. With an investment of approximately $319,000,000 it has added 180 megawatts of solar capacity for our Wisconsin utility customers.

Next up on our schedule, we expect the 2 25 Megawatt Gary Ann Solar Park to go into service later this year. Natural gas also continues to be a critical resource for reliable service. We expect the Wisconsin Commission to make rulings on several major project filings throughout the year. That includes 1200 megawatts for efficient natural gas generation as well as 33 mile lateral and 2 Bcf of liquefied natural gas storage. Turning to our WEC infrastructure business.

The Delilah 1 and Maple Flat solar project went online at the end of last year. Between those two facilities, we invested approximately $890,000,000 or 90 percent ownership of 5 50 megawatts of capacity. And we expect to close on the Hardin III project during the Q1. We plan to invest approximately $407,000,000 for 90 percent ownership interest of the project, which has a total capacity of 2 50 megawatts. As a reminder, this project fulfills our 5 year planned investment at WEC Infrastructure.

Regarding transmission, as you saw in January, MISO announced capital investments on tranche 2.1. We expect ATC to be assigned approximately $2,000,000,000 of that tranche with an additional opportunity through the right of first refusal or competitive bid of up to $1,500,000,000 to $1,800,000,000 As you know, we own 60% of ATC. Overall, we have a lot of confidence in our ability to execute on our capital plan and continue our growth trajectory. Now turning to the regulatory front. I am pleased to report that we currently have no planned or active rate cases.

As you know, the Wisconsin Commission finalized their written orders for test year 20252026. Consistent with prior disclosures, the commission maintained a 53% financial equity layer and a 9.8% return on equity for our Wisconsin utilities. In Illinois, we remain actively engaged in 2 proceedings of note. One of these is evaluating the future of natural gas in Illinois. Currently, it's scheduled to extend into 2026.

The other, a review of our safety monetization program, is close to its conclusion. We made our final oral arguments before the Commerce Commission last week and expect a decision this quarter. Next up, Shah will provide you more details on our financials.

Thanks, Scott. Turning now to earnings. Our 2024 adjusted earnings were $4.88 per share, an increase of $0.25 per share over 2023 adjusted earnings. In 2024, we experienced the warmest winter on record. The estimated weather headwind was $0.25 per share when compared to normal conditions.

We were able to offset this by implementing a variety of initiatives such as O and M and fuel management as well as tax and financing activities. This focus on execution was key for delivering our adjusted EPS near the top end of the earnings guidance. Now let's take a closer look at our year over year variances. Our earnings package includes a comparison of adjusted full year results on Page 17. I'll walk through the significant drivers.

Starting with our utility operations, weather decreased earnings year over year by an estimated $0.05 per share. This weather impact along with a total of $0.38 negative impact related to increases in depreciation and amortization, day to day O and M and interest expense were more than offset by $0.49 of total positive variances from rate based growth, fuel, tax and other. All in all, the utility operations grew $0.06 year over year. Now before I discuss earnings comparison at the other segments, let me briefly comment on O and M and sales. Remember that originally we guided 2024 total company day to day O and M to be 6% to 7% higher compared to 2023, largely driven by assets that were placed in service and normal inflation.

As you recall, several of the assets in WEC infrastructure had a delayed in service until the end of the year. This in combination with the initiatives we took after the mild Q1 helped us achieve an overall increase of 2% over 2023 that is considerably lower than the original guidance. Regarding our weather normal sales for 2024, as you can see on Pages 1314 in our earnings packet, both retail electric and natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin were relatively flat year over year. For 2025, we're projecting whether normal retail electric sales in Wisconsin, excluding the iron ore mine to grow 0.7% and retail gas sales in Wisconsin, excluding power generation to grow 1.9% from the 2024 level. Now back to our earnings comparison.

Regarding our investment in American Transmission Company, earnings increased $0.07 compared to 2023. We recognized 0 point complaints and set the ROE at 10.48%. The remaining $0.02 improvement in ATC earnings was driven by continued capital investment. Earnings at our Energy Infrastructure segment grew $0.13 in 2024 compared to $2,023.03 were driven by additional investment in our Power of the Future plant and the remaining $0.10 relate to WEC infrastructure. Finally, you'll see that earnings at our Corporate and Other segment decreased to $0.01 Higher interest expense was substantially offset by tax and other items.

Overall, we improved our performance by $0.25 per share on an adjusted basis in 2024. Next, let's look at our earnings guidance. For the Q1 this year, we project to earn in the range of $2.13 per share to $2.23 per share. This forecast takes into account January weather and assumes normal weather for the rest of the quarter. Remember, last year, we earned $1.97 per share in the Q1.

And as Scott stated, for the full year 2025, we are reaffirming our annual guidance of $5.17 to $5.27 per share. Finally, some comments on financing. In 2024, we successfully executed over $4,500,000,000 of external funding, including almost $200,000,000 of common equity. In 2025, consistent with previous disclosures, we expect to issue $700,000,000 to $800,000,000 of common equity via our ATM program as well as the dividend reinvestment and employee benefit plans. Including this, as a reminder, total common equity financing over the next 5 years is still expected to be between $2,700,000,000 $3,200,000,000 Going forward, to support the region's strong economic growth and our capital investment, we continue to expect any incremental capital will be funded with 50% equity content.

Overall, we are confident in our long term EPS growth CAGR of 6.5% to 7%. With that, I'll turn it back to Scott.

Thank you, Shah. Now as you may have seen, our Board in its January meeting increased the dividend by 6.9% to an annualized $3.57 per share. This will mark the 22nd consecutive year that our shareholders will be rewarded with higher dividends. The increase is consistent with our policy of paying out 65% to 70% of our earnings in dividends. Overall, we are on track and focused on providing value for our customers and our stockholders.

Operator, we are now ready for the question and answer portion of the call.

Thank you. And now we will take your questions. The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. And your first question comes from the line of Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open.

Hey, Scott. Surprisingly, a couple of data center questions for you.

it's okay, just want to touch on the recent cold relief data center announcement. It looks like it's a 1,000 acre campus in Port Washington. There's been some local headlines have kind of indicated that there's been pushback from the constituencies and some of the local obviously rate payers. Could we just get a status there? What's the timing expectations?

How many megawatts is the project expected to be? And would this be incremental to your current plan? Thanks.

Sure. Absolutely. So they announced the plan up in Port Washington, which is just north of Milwaukee. And our understanding, it's about 1700 acres. So a little over the 1,000.

There was an announcement at one time being 1,000, but I think they're up 1700 acres now. And right now, the initial look and in their initial announcement, they talked about a gigawatt of additional, which would be all incremental to our plan. I think there's it's early stages yet, so 1700 acres provide a lot of opportunities. And my understanding is, at Port Washington and the City of Port Washington has been very constructive and positive on the development. So we're excited about it.

I think Cloverleaf is excited about it and looks like a good opportunity for all of us.

Got it. And then just sorry Scott, this any opportunity will be incremental to the current plan?

Correct. Correct. So that 1800 megawatts that we talked about in our current 5 year plan, that never contemplated any of this that was just announced. And when we wait till the customers make an announcement like I said before we've talked to a lot of data centers and other developers, but as they make announcements that's when we'll first start rolling them into our plan. We'll take time now as we go through the plan and working with them this summer and when does that stage throughout the 5 year plan and into the future 5 year capital.

Got it. Perfect. And then just touching on just some of the recent Microsoft news. There's obviously been reports and we're seeing that they're acquiring more land in Wisconsin. So it looks like it's full speed ahead.

Obviously, the DeepSeq headlines have caused some confusion around U. S. Spending opportunities and then there's Stargate. Are you seeing any sort of impacts in either direction with the Microsoft spending opportunities, the trajectory? So just any kind of visibility there?

And is there any update on the tariff negotiations? Thanks.

Sure. So in the Microsoft, in fact, I was listening to the Microsoft conference call to get intel on what their thoughts are on DeepSeq and other conference calls about it. And everything I've heard is if AI becomes more efficient, more people will use it and the demand is going to still be there. So we also internally when we saw DeepSeq and other discussions about that, we reached out to data centers and even the discussion that happened in Cloverleaf is after the DeepSeq. So all our capacity plans and all our growth plans are still intact.

There's no changes there. So that's been all very positive. What we have seen and just to be very clear, there was an area 2 areas in the Microsoft project that was paused. The one area has been release of the pause, design issues that they're looking at. And then the other area is still being reviewed on design items that they're looking at.

I think it has to deal with looking at a closed loop water system. So that we expect to get more information on that in the next couple of months. So all moving forward there, we're actively working with these large very large customers on tariffs. We expect something probably in the next 6 months that we'll be filing with them. But we're all aligned on what we need to do in order to be fair on cost allocation and they all agree they need to pay their fair share.

Fair enough, Scott. Thanks again. Super helpful color. See you soon. Bye.

And your next question comes from the line of Bill Apiceli with UBS. Your line is open.

Hi. Just going a little bit expanding on on the incremental demand that you're seeing. I mean, as we look across the 1800 megawatts you guys outlined back in Q4, can you just remind us of what the generation capacity looks like? And when you factor in the combustion turbines and some of the stuff that's in the current plan, where does that get you in terms of net length in the system relative to what maybe another wave of incremental demand from maybe from Cloverleaf or from additional Microsoft development?

Sure. And as we put our 5 year plan together last fall with the 1800 megawatts in the southeastern Wisconsin region, which is all the great economic development going on in the region in addition to Microsoft, we are looking at the generation plan and the MISO rules and really building to what we need for capacity to support the MISO rules and the economic development. So there's not excess capacity out there. This would all be incremental support that we need for reliable capacity. So that will be reflected in our updated capital plans going forward.

Okay. Right. So if projects like Cloverleaf were to come to fruition and the Microsoft expansion that would likely need to be supported by additional generation investments?

That is correct. And a lot of these investments are looking for a mix of not just reliable gas capacity, but also renewables in a generation mix just like we lay out in our plans.

And then, I mean, how quickly can that be developed? I mean, there's a lot of talk in the market about just the lead times for putting in additional generation capacity, and whether or not that syncs up with sort of the development profiles or timelines of some of the data centers and large load customers?

That's a good question because a lot of people a lot of people have plans and everyone wants to move very fast. When you look at to develop a data center starting with a farm field along with the transmission and the generation, it could take 3 to 4 years to get there. But that's why we're working hand in glove with them and American Transmission Company to continue to grow and what we need to do to deliver.

Okay. And then just lastly on the system modernization program hearings last week, I guess what should we make of the decision when we get it? I mean does that have any impact on the gas CapEx outlook in Illinois in the more near term or do we need to see what the future of natural gas proceeding kind of yields before we can make any longer term capital decisions?

Sure. And just to give you a little color, what we currently have in our plan is approximately 90,000,000 dollars annually to support facility relocates for like the City of Chicago or any key reliability or safety issues that we need to address. So it's about 90,000,000 In our filings, we talked about in order to get back to a plan that would take up to about CAD300 1,000,000 of capital. Now remember, the decision will come, we expect in February, and we'll kind of gauge what's going off of their decision, but it would take a while to ramp up because remember we were told to pause and stop all activity and reduce that spending. So we'd have to put more contracts in place, go through the permitting, go through the engineering, all of that.

So it would take a while to ramp up, but we'll see what comes out of that decision in February. We expect it in February, March.

Your next question comes from the line of Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Hey, team. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just to start off, any updates on Point Beach? I know you were kind of talking with Nexstar.

Are there any updates there since we last spoke?

No, there really hasn't been any updates. And just so everyone recalls, the contract in Point Beach, the first lease ends in 2,030 and the PPA the second PPA ends in 2,030 3. So it's not a fire drill that we're actively at it and you could we've been busy with a lot of stuff and I think you can tell Dxaira has been busy on a lot of stuff. So it hasn't been on the front burner for all of us. I expect we'll have more information in the first half of the year.

That's perfect. Thank you, Scott. And then maybe just a big picture question. With these tariffs, how should we, us and investors, think about implications to Wisconsin and just broadly utilities? It seems like these China tariffs are in effect right now.

We're not sure how long they'll last, but how are you thinking through all of this?

Well, we're watching them very closely as you can imagine. In the China tariffs could affect us somewhat. When you think about some of the solar projects we have and some of the sourcing that's needed. But once again, it's not a large part of the solar projects. So we think it's very manageable where they're currently at.

And the tariffs that we potentially out of Canada and Mexico, we are watching very closely also along with the cost of gas. But even with the cost of gas, when you're watching it at a 10% tariff, that was moving that gas cost from $3 to $3.30 and that's a small portion of the gas supply that we have. And we saw the gas prices move a lot faster with just some cold weather coming across. So, we think it's going to be manageable, but we're watching them very closely.

Got it. Thank you, Scott. Really appreciate the time.

And your next question comes from the line of Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. You referenced before renewable capacity as being part of what is being considered by some of these large load customers. I guess, do you see any implications from new policy priorities post inauguration that could potentially impact the cadence of your capital investment in renewables?

There's a potential and we're evaluating all of that as we see what goes on with the administration and the tariffs and production tax credits. However, I do think that production the PTCs will continue and they won't just be phased out immediately. I think there's a longer term benefit for a lot of people, a lot of construction jobs, a lot of value for our customers. So I'm not anticipating big changes there, but of course all of us including large customers are watching it. But at this time, I don't see any issues on the horizon.

Got it. Great. That's helpful. And then maybe just a housekeeping item. Just with the O and M coming in lower in 2024 versus your expectations, any color that you can provide on how we should think about the year over year impacts for O and M looking to 2025?

Sure. And I'll let and remember there's a lot of this because of individual projects didn't come into service and a lot of new projects are coming online in 2025, but Shah has pulled together some analysis. I'll let her walk you through it.

Yes. Carly, so over remember, 24% came in about 5% less than what we originally forecasted. And some of that is short term initiatives to offset the mild heating season and some of that is delayed of capital put in service. So we need to restore that kind of run rate, 1st of all. And on top of that, we have new projects we will put in service this year.

And also in the current, the last rate cases in Wisconsin, the commission approved some increase in reliability spending, particularly for vegetation management. If you add all those moving pieces, it could be a relatively bigger growth year over year, but it's all like driven by the factors I mentioned already.

Got it. And when you say higher relative growth year over year, are you talking about in reference to the original guidance for 2024 or where you actually ended up coming in?

When compared to original guidance, it's pretty normal. But if you compare to what 2024 came in, it could be, I don't know, 8%, 10% growth year over year.

Okay, got it. That's super helpful. Thanks so much for the time.

And your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon team. Thank you guys very much. Hope you guys are doing well.

Yes. Thanks, Julien. Yes, we're doing great in Wisconsin.

Excellent. Hey, just a couple of cleanup items here following up. First, in Illinois, I want to come back to this, because that staff recommendation for option 3 at $7,000,000 this was $19,000,000,000 was a big number. Obviously, you've put in in a fairly modest plan here. How much of a delta is there versus what you guys have reflected?

I mean, I just again, I get that apples to apples is difficult to discern at times, but how would you characterize that as far as the comparison?

Sure. And to get up to that staff number, because they even said we should maybe do it at the same pace or even a little bit faster. To get up to that staff number, we'd have to ramp up to $300,000,000 to maybe $350,000,000 a year in the short term and then go higher than that, as you get through just with factoring in just different inflation and stuff. So we'll see where that goes, but that would be 200,000,000

little over $200,000,000 more than what's annually, more than what's in our plan.

Got it. All right. Thanks for trying to reconcile. I know it's tricky on the fly here. And then just going back to I know there's been a lot of focus on data center stuff, but I just want to make sure I got this right here.

Do we know the quantum of megawatts? I thought there was like a 3 gigawatt number out there with Cloverleaf. Do we have any sense of timing at all on the ramp? And similarly for Phase 3, what would be contemplated on ramp? I just want to make sure I have a sense from you.

Since which you were to get details here, the quantum of gigawatts and especially the ramp rate and would this be ready for like some updates this year? Or it sounds like maybe that's not a 25 event and as much as it could take some time to come together Rhonda, do you

think Sure. Sure. In Cloverleaf, it is a tremendously nice site and it's a great opportunity. And in our prepared remarks, we said a gigawatt. I have heard that it could be significantly larger like you mentioned.

I anticipate that if things continue to move as they have that we could start seeing some construction perhaps this fall even, but that ramp rate then to actually get to energy flowing probably would take 3 to 4 years, I would imagine, to flow substantial amounts. So probably in that 'twenty eight or 'twenty nine time frame. But we're working with them and working with American Transmission Company to provide services as fast as they can they need it.

Got it. And Phase 3 says similar dynamic that maybe the punch line is would you expect there to be kind of a tangible update by the end of this year kind of in your normal course?

I think there will be more of an update by the end of this year, absolutely, with our updated 5 year plan.

WEC Energy Group (WEC) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants