NorthWestern Corporation Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

  • download
  • Print
  • Recommend
  • 0

2008-08-26 09:03:15.0

Tags: Bird, Call Transcript, Weather, Earnings, Buyback, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Yes, thank you. (Operator instructions) All right, and we have our first question from Igor Grinman with Zimmer Lucas Partners. Go ahead, sir.

Devin Geoghegan Zimmer Lucas Partners

Hi, it's actually Devin Geoghegan. Hey guys, how's it going?

Brian Bird

Hi, Devin.

Mike Hanson

Hi, Dev.

Devin Geoghegan Zimmer Lucas Partners

Hey, nice quarter, congratulations.

Mike Hanson

Thanks.

Devin Geoghegan Zimmer Lucas Partners

I'm just curious about the buyback. Let's say the guys that are getting the 2.4 million shares choose to just take their shares, will you guys execute the buyback on the open market anyways?

Brian Bird

Yes, Devin, if – unless it's a few, a small number of shares and we have completed, executed essentially what we set out to do, we'd expect that we'd buy approximately the 3 million-odd shares we talked about. So our expectation is people are going to take cash, but if the lion's share of the folks buy, decide to take their shares, we'll execute through other means to buy back the shares we talked about.

Devin Geoghegan Zimmer Lucas Partners

Great, thanks so much, guys.

Brian Bird

Thanks, Devin.

Operator

Thank you. And next in the line up, Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Brian Russo Ladenburg Thalmann

Hey, good morning, guys.

Mike Hanson

Hi, Brian.

Brian Bird

Hi, Brian.

Brian Russo Ladenburg Thalmann

It seems like you had a real solid second quarter, specifically with natural gas sales related to weather. I was just wondering can you quantify the weather impact on an EPS basis?

Brian Bird

I would just say for the quarter, Brian, it's approximately $0.04.

Brian Russo Ladenburg Thalmann

Okay. And –

Brian Bird

That's weather in total.

Brian Russo Ladenburg Thalmann

Okay. And given the above normal weather conditions, would you say you're more towards the high end of your guidance now?

Brian Bird

Brian, we're not going to – as we mentioned in our press release and as I mentioned here, we're not going to talk about where we sit in our guidance at this point in time.

Brian Russo Ladenburg Thalmann

Okay. And then just on the Colstrip volumes, it looks like there was a nice increase from 2Q '07. I'm just wondering, in the second half of '08, were there any operating issues at Colstrip, or can you give me a sense of what kind of capacity factor it operated in the second half '07 versus your assumptions for second half '08?

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement