Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements in this release may relate to our future business and financial performance and future events or developments involving us and our subsidiaries that are not purely historical and may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “can,” “expect(s),” “believe(s),” “anticipate(s),” “intend(s),” “plan(s),” “estimate(s),” “project(s),” “assume(s),” “guide(s),” “target(s),” “forecast(s),” “are (is) confident that” and “seek(s)” or the negative of such terms or other variations on such terms or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives and intentions, outlooks or expectations for earnings, revenues, expenses or other future financial or business performance, strategies or expectations, or the impact of legal or regulatory matters on business, results of operations or financial condition of the business and other statements that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon the current reasonable beliefs, expectations, and assumptions of our management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially. Important factors are discussed and should be reviewed in our Form 10-K and other subsequent filings with the SEC. Specifically, forward-looking statements include, without limitation:
| • | | the future financial performance, anticipated liquidity and capital expenditures; |
| • | | actions or inactions of local, state or federal regulatory agencies; |
| • | | the ability to recruit and retain a highly qualified and diverse workforce in the competitive labor market; |
| • | | changes in amount, timing or ability to complete capital projects; |
| • | | adverse developments in general market, business, economic, labor, regulatory and political conditions including, without limitation, the impacts of inflation, deflation, supply-chain interruptions and changing prices and labor costs; |
| • | | the impacts of climate change, fluctuations in weather patterns and extreme weather events; |
| • | | technological developments; |
| • | | the impact of extraordinary external events, such as any cyber breaches or other incidents, grid disturbances, acts of war or terrorism, civil or social unrest, natural disasters, pandemic health events or other similar occurrences; |
| • | | the impact of any change to applicable laws and regulations, including those subject to referendums affecting the ownership and operations of electric and gas utilities and renewable energy generation facilities, respectively, including, without limitation, those relating to the environment and climate change, taxes, price controls, regulatory approval and permitting; |
| • | | our ability to close the proposed Merger (as defined below), the anticipated timing and terms of the proposed Merger, our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed Merger and our ability to manage the risks of the proposed Merger; |
| • | | the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on business and economic conditions and the pace of recovery from the pandemic; |
| • | | the implementation of changes in accounting standards; |
| • | | adverse publicity or other reputational harm; and |
| • | | other presently unknown unforeseen factors. |
Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this report, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. Other risk factors are detailed from time to time in our reports filed with the SEC, and we encourage you to consult such disclosures.
Use of Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures
To supplement our consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we consider adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA with Tax Credits as financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measures we use are specific to AVANGRID and the non-GAAP financial measures of other companies may not be calculated in the same manner. We use these non-GAAP financial measures, in addition to U.S. GAAP measures, to establish operating budgets and operational goals to manage and monitor our business, evaluate our operating and financial performance and to compare such performance to prior periods and to the performance of our competitors. We believe that presenting such non-GAAP financial measures is useful because such measures can be used to analyze and compare profitability between companies and industries by eliminating the impact of certain non-cash charges. In addition, we present non-GAAP financial measures because we believe that they and other similar measures are widely used by certain investors, securities analysts and other interested parties as supplemental measures of performance.
We define adjusted net income as net income adjusted to exclude restructuring charges, mark-to-market earnings from changes in the fair value of derivative instruments, accelerated depreciation derived from repowering of wind farms, costs incurred related to the PNMR Merger, a legal settlement and costs incurred in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe adjusted net income is more useful in understanding and evaluating actual and projected financial performance and contribution of AVANGRID core lines of business and to more fully compare and explain our results. The most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure to adjusted net income is net income. We also define adjusted earnings per share, or adjusted EPS, as adjusted net income converted to an earnings per share amount.
4