Business Context and Reporting Period
Company: American Electric Power Company, Inc.
Filing Type: Form 8-K (Current Report)
Date of Report: May 5, 2009
Event: Regulation FD Disclosure regarding investor meetings and earnings guidance reaffirmation.
Key Financial Metrics
This filing does not report specific revenue, profit, cash flow, debt, or liquidity figures for a completed period. The primary financial metric disclosed is forward-looking earnings guidance.
- 2009 Fiscal Year Ongoing Earnings Guidance: $2.75 to $3.05 per share.
- Performance Metric: Management utilizes "ongoing earnings" (GAAP earnings adjusted for certain items) as the primary measure for performance and budget reporting.
Material Changes
There are no material changes to financial results reported in this document. The filing serves to reaffirm the guidance previously issued on April 24, 2009, ensuring that information shared during investor meetings on May 5, 2009, is consistent with prior public disclosures.
Guidance, Outlook, and Risks
Outlook: Management reaffirms the 2009 ongoing earnings per share range of $2.75 to $3.05.
Risks and Contingencies: The filing lists numerous factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from projections, including:
- Electric load, customer growth, and weather conditions (including storms).
- Fuel availability, costs, and supplier creditworthiness.
- Regulatory decisions, rate cases, and the ability to recover stranded costs or environmental compliance costs.
- Legislation and litigation, including Clean Air Act enforcement and disputes related to the Enron Corp. bankruptcy.
- Financial market conditions affecting capital availability and debt refinancing.
- Volatility in electricity, natural gas, and commodity markets.
- Performance of pension and postretirement benefit plans.
- Unforeseen events such as wars, terrorism, and catastrophic events.
Disclaimer: The registrant expressly disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking information.
Investor Verification Checklist
- Verify the specific "certain items" excluded from GAAP earnings to calculate "ongoing earnings" as referenced in the April 24, 2009 press release.
- Monitor pending rate cases and regulatory decisions regarding environmental compliance costs (sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, carbon).
- Track the status of litigation related to the Enron Corp. bankruptcy and Clean Air Act enforcement actions.
- Assess the impact of current fuel costs and creditworthiness of fuel suppliers on the 2009 earnings target.