Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Your first question comes from the line of Mr. Scott Engstrom of Blenom Capital Management. Please proceed.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
Good morning, guys.
Mark Ruelle
Good morning, Scott.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
Just a quick question on your, I guess, you're talking about the rest of the year, fourth quarter. The fourth quarter of last year, COLI, was that about a half million dollars?
Mark Ruelle
We want stick that up. We had total COLI of $16.4 million last year. Year-to-date this year, were at only $700. Year-to-date was $15.5 million, lands to three quarters last year, so it’s about $900K.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
Okay. And you had $0.15 was the total earnings for last year's fourth quarter.
Mark Ruelle
I think it was for the full year, Scott.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
No, I'm sorry, $0.15 was the consolidated earnings number for the last year's fourth quarter.
Mark Ruelle
Yeah, that's correct.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
Yeah. And it included roughly a million dollars of COLI.
Mark Ruelle
Right. If I recall, it also included a pretty sizable mark-to-market gain that hit like on the last day of the year, a million dollar of pre-tax.
Scott Engstrom - Blenom Capital Management
I want just kind of my other question. Looking, I mean, I know you mentioned COLI as a big factor for the year. But just thinking about the quarter, you're already at $1.71 for the year in 2007 which is, I think, the midpoint to getting into the high end of your range.
Just wondering if there are other factors that are going to keep fourth quarter earnings this year down relative to last year?
Bill Moore
Scott, you know, typically the fourth quarter is not a very strong quarter for Westar. We obviously are a summer electric utility and third quarter is our big quarter. Factors that go into our fourth quarter, other than COLI, as you mentioned, would be market based sales and we run models on our market based wholesale sales and given where the price tag was when we ran our numbers for our last outlook for our year to go, prices were relatively soft and that could be a swing.
If prices go softer, it's going to be a little leaner quarter. If prices are up, then it will be a little bit better quarter than we had, then we're anticipating, which is why we have the language we're going to be toward the upper end of the range. Which means we could be at it or slightly above it, depending on other variables.
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