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This presentation discusses various matters
that are “forward-looking statements” intended to qualify for the safe harbor
from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Such statements address or may address future plans, objectives,
expectations and events or conditions concerning various matters such as
capital expenditures, earnings, pension and other costs, competition,
litigation, our construction program, our generation plans, our financing
plans, potential acquisitions, rate and other regulatory matters, liquidity and
capital resources and accounting matters. Forward-looking statements may
contain words like “anticipate,” “believe,” “expect,” “project,” “objective”
or similar expressions to identify them as forward-looking statements.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
currently anticipated in such statements include: weather, business and
economic conditions and other factors which may impact sales volumes and
customer growth; the costs and other impacts resulting from natural disasters,
such as tornados and ice storms; the amount, terms and timing of rate relief
we seek and related matters; the results of prudency and similar reviews by
regulators of costs we incur, including capital expenditures and fuel and
purchased power costs, including any regulatory disallowances that could
result from prudency reviews; unauthorized physical or virtual access to our
facilities and systems and acts of terrorism, including, but not limited to,
cyber-terrorism; legislation and regulation, including environmental
regulation (such as NOx, SO2, mercury, ash and CO2) and health care
regulation; the periodic revision of our construction and capital expenditure
plans and cost and timing estimates costs and activities associated with
markets and transmission, including the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) regional
transmission organization (RTO) transmission development, and SPP Day-Ahead
Market; the impact of energy efficiency and alternative energy sources;
electric utility restructuring, including deregulation; spending rates,
terminal value calculations and other factors integral to the calculations
utilized to test the impairment of goodwill, in addition to market and
economic conditions which could adversely affect the analysis and ultimately
negatively impact earnings; volatility in the credit, equity and other
financial markets and the resulting impact on our short term debt costs and
our ability to issue debt or equity securities, or otherwise secure funds to
meet our capital expenditure, dividend and liquidity needs; the effect of
changes in our credit ratings on the availability and cost of funds; the
performance of our pension assets and other post employment benefit plan
assets and the resulting impact on our related funding commitments; our
exposure to the credit risk of our hedging counterparties; the cost and
availability of purchased power and fuel, including costs and activities
associated with the SPP Day-Ahead Market, and the results of our activities
(such as hedging) to reduce the volatility of such costs; interruptions or
changes in our coal delivery, gas transportation or storage agreements or
arrangements; operation of our electric generation facilities and electric
and gas transmission and distribution systems, including the performance of our
joint owners; our potential inability to attract and retain an appropriately
qualified workforce; changes in accounting requirements; costs and effects of
legal and administrative proceedings, settlements, investigations and claims;
performance of acquired businesses; and other circumstances affecting
anticipated rates, revenues and costs. All such factors are difficult to
predict, contain uncertainties that may materially affect actual results, and
may be beyond our control. New factors emerge from time to time and it is not
possible for management to predict all factors or to assess the impact of
each factor on us. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date
on which such statement is made, and we do not undertake any obligation to
update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after
the date on which such statement is made. We caution you that any
forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and
involve known and unknown risk, uncertainties and other factors which may
cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially
from the facts, results, performance or achievements we have anticipated in
such forward-looking statements. Forward Looking Statements
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