Ameren

Phase A — Understand the business

Lens 1 · Company Overview

Ameren Corporation is a pure-play, rate-regulated electric and gas utility holding company headquartered at 1901 Chouteau Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. It is a Missouri corporation (incorporated 1-14756) whose only real assets are the equity in its operating subsidiaries — it makes no money itself; its dividend and expenses are funded by distributions up from the subsidiaries.

The business is three legal entities and four reporting segments:

• Ameren Missouri (Union Electric Company) — vertically-integrated, rate-regulated electric generation + transmission + distribution, plus gas distribution, in Missouri. This is the big one (generation ownership is what makes it vertically integrated, unlike the Illinois wires-only businesses).
• Ameren Illinois Electric Distribution — wires-only electric distribution in Illinois.
• Ameren Illinois Natural Gas — gas distribution in Illinois.
• Ameren Transmission — FERC-regulated electric transmission (Ameren Illinois Transmission + ATXI, the Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois), earning a FERC-authorised return inside MISO.

How it makes money (plain terms): Ameren spends capital building and maintaining poles, wires, pipes, and power plants ("rate base"), and regulators (the Missouri PSC, the Illinois ICC, and FERC) let it earn a regulated return-on-equity on that invested capital, recovered through customer rates. Earnings grow by growing rate base — i.e. by investing more, not by selling more electrons. That is the entire model.

Customers: ~1.2M+ electric and gas customers across Missouri and central/southern Illinois (residential, commercial, industrial). The newest and most important customer class is hyperscale data centers — see Lens 8.

Suppliers: nuclear fuel assemblies for the Callaway Energy Center come from a single NRC-licensed supplier — a named single-source dependency. Otherwise: coal/gas commodity, EPC contractors, transmission equipment, and increasingly solar/wind/battery OEMs.

Competitors: in the literal sense, none — these are legal monopolies inside their service territories. The competition is for capital and valuation against peer regulated utilities (Xcel, WEC, Evergy, CMS, DUK, SO) and for new large-load customers against utilities in neighbouring states.

Contract structure / payment terms: revenue is set by regulated tariffs and rate orders, not commercial contracts. The exception — and it is a big one — is the new Large Load Customer Rate Plan (approved by the Missouri PSC November 24, 2025): data centers ≥75 MW must sign an Electric Service Agreement with a 12-year minimum term plus up to a 5-year ramp, and a take-or-pay floor of ~80% of contracted demand. That is a genuine take-or-pay structure layered onto an otherwise tariff-driven book.

Lens 2 · Supply Chain

Map (upstream input → Ameren → end customer), named where the filing names them:

Upstream inputs:

• Nuclear fuel → one NRC-licensed assembly supplier for the Callaway Energy Center (Missouri's only nuclear plant, ~1.2 GW). Single-source chokepoint.
• Natural gas → purchased for both generation (gas-fired plants) and resale to gas-distribution customers; commodity cost is a pass-through ($348M purchased-for-resale in 2025).
• Coal → declining; Meramec retired end-2024, Rush Island retired 2024.
• Renewables/storage equipment → solar panels, wind turbines, and large-scale batteries; the filing explicitly flags dependence on the ability to obtain materials to qualify for federal production/investment tax credits — an IRA-supply-chain chokepoint.
• Transmission/distribution equipment → transformers, conductors, the usual grid-gear supply constraints (not named).

The company: generation (Missouri) + the wires/pipes (both states) + FERC transmission (MISO).

Downstream / end customers: ~1.2M+ Missouri + Illinois retail customers, plus the new data-center large-load class (signed ESAs totalling 2.2 GW, see Lens 8). For transmission, the "customer" is the MISO market and other load-serving entities paying the FERC tariff.

Chokepoints / single-source dependencies:

1. Callaway nuclear fuel — single licensed supplier.
2. IRA tax-credit eligibility — contingent on domestic-content/material sourcing for renewables.
3. Transmission interconnection queue + permitting — explicitly flagged as a risk to bringing new generation online.

Note: a regulated utility's "supply chain" risk is muted because most input-cost volatility is a regulatory pass-through. The binding constraint is not input price but input availability and timing (can it build the plants and lines fast enough, and recover the cost?).

Lens 3 · Competitive Advantages (moats)

The moat is the regulated monopoly franchise — the deepest, most durable moat in the equity market, and also the most boring. Specifics for Ameren:

• Legal monopoly + regulatory barriers to entry. No competitor can string a parallel grid. Switching cost for a customer is infinite (you cannot choose another distribution utility). This is a structural network/scale moat that does not erode.
• Constructive, "forward-looking" regulatory mechanisms — Ameren's real edge over weaker-jurisdiction peers. In Missouri it has PISA (Plant-in-Service Accounting — recovers infrastructure investment with reduced regulatory lag), RESRAM (renewable cost recovery), and recent legislation allowing construction-work-in-progress (CWIP) in rate base for new gas and IRP-approved generation. In Illinois it operates under multi-year rate plans (MYRPs) and formula-style transmission rates. These mechanisms compress the lag between spending capital and earning on it — the single biggest swing factor in utility ROE.
• Bargaining power. Over customers: total (monopoly), bounded only by what regulators will approve and by political affordability pressure. Over suppliers: moderate — large enough to matter, but exposed on single-source nuclear fuel and on tax-credit-eligible renewable materials.
• The differentiated growth asset: sitting in the path of Missouri's data-center build-out with a regulator-blessed large-load tariff that protects existing ratepayers (the 80% take-or-pay, 12-yr term). Most utilities want this load; few have already papered it with a protective rate structure. That is a temporary competitive advantage in capturing growth, not a permanent moat.

Where the moat is weaker than bulls think: the franchise protects the existence of earnings, not the growth rate or the ROE. Both are entirely at the mercy of three regulators and of state politics on affordability. The moat does not protect the multiple.

Lens 4 · Segments

Full segment income statement, FY2025 vs FY2024, **all ** (Ameren-consolidated view, $M):

Revenue mix (2025): total operating revenue $8,799M = electric $7,668M + natural gas $1,131M (2024: $7,623M; +15.4% YoY). Electric revenue by segment: Missouri $4,631M, IL Electric Distribution $2,399M, Transmission $862M.

Trend and cause — accelerating, and it's almost all rate base + rates, not volume:

• Missouri is the engine (+34% net income). Driver: the April 2025 MoPSC electric rate order effective June 1, 2025 (+42¢/sh), the absence of the 2024 Rush Island DOJ charge (+17¢/sh), and genuinely higher retail volumes from weather + weather-normalised growth (~+22¢/sh).
• Transmission +28% on higher rate-base investment + the absence of an October-2024 FERC ROE cut and refund (+4¢/sh).
• Earnings-per-share bridge 2024→2025 (+$0.93): +42¢ MO rate order, +32¢ deferred-tax revaluation (one-time-ish), +22¢ MO volumes, +17¢ no Rush Island charge, +17¢ MO deferred interest, +14¢ TX/IL rate base, partly offset by −24¢ higher financing cost, −18¢ higher O&M, −8¢ share dilution.

Read: the growth is high-quality (rate orders + rate base) but note ~32¢ of the 93¢ beat is a deferred-tax revaluation that doesn't repeat. Underlying, rate-base-driven growth is the durable engine; Missouri's vertical-integration generation build is where the incremental capital — and incremental earnings — concentrate.

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Phase B — Measure performance

Lens 5 · Earnings Result (latest print: Q1 2026, reported May 6 2026)

• Net income to common: $357M, EPS $1.28 diluted, vs Q1 2025 $289M / $1.07 — +$68M, +21¢/sh, +19.6% YoY.
• Driver: earnings on increased infrastructure investment across Missouri, Illinois, and transmission.
• Offsets: lower Missouri electric retail sales (warmer-than-normal winter) and higher Missouri interest expense. The weather drag is the one soft spot.
• Guidance: reaffirmed 2026 EPS of $5.25–$5.45 (midpoint $5.35 = flat-to-up vs 2025's $5.35 actual). The reaffirmation, not raise, with Q1 already +20%, implies management is sandbagging or expects weather/financing headwinds to weigh on later quarters.
• Balance-sheet flags: see Lens 10 — the structural item is negative FCF (capex >> operating cash flow), funded by debt + equity.
• Market reaction: stock closed −1.93% at $111.64 on the print day, then rebounded ~+1.5% pre-market the next day. A 20% EPS jump that the stock shrugged at tells you the result was fully expected — utilities trade on the trajectory of rate base and the regulatory calendar, not the quarterly print.

Lens 6 · Earnings Calls (sentiment trend)

No transcripts on the research layer; sourced from web call summaries.

• Q4 2025 call (Feb 12 2026): the framing was "robust growth strategy" anchored on a $31.8B five-year capital plan and the new long-term growth guidance; CEO Marty Lyons leaned hard into data-center demand as the structural new leg.
• Q1 2026 call (May 6 2026): "EPS jumps 20% on infrastructure push" — same drumbeat, infrastructure investment + load growth.
• Earlier (Nov 2025 call): Lyons disclosed data centers had signed construction agreements for 3 GW of requested demand.

Tone shift over the last ~3–4 calls: clearly more confident and more growth-forward. The vocabulary moved from "disciplined infrastructure investment / affordability" (the classic defensive-utility script) to "data center demand," "load growth," "economic development," and an explicitly larger capital plan. What they say more of: data centers, rate base, IRP/generation build. What they've de-emphasised: the Rush Island litigation overhang (now resolved). This is a management team that has found a growth narrative and is repeating it.

Lens 7 · Comps

Peer regulated-utility table. Ameren figures: market cap and forward P/E ; peers from the same searches. Where a precise multiple wasn't sourced, it is marked n/a rather than invented.

Read: Ameren trades at ~20x forward — in line with WEC/Xcel, a clear premium to Evergy (~19x), and at a notably lower dividend yield (2.7%) than the peer group (~3.2–3.4%). The market is paying a premium-to-average multiple and accepting a below-average yield, which is the market saying "this one has the better growth profile" — i.e. the data-center/rate-base story is at least partly in the price. Ameren is not cheap on yield; the bull case has to be growth, not income. (Note: EV/EBITDA and 5-yr ROE were not cleanly sourceable in this pass — flagged for refresh; ROE matters because the whole model is "earn allowed ROE on rate base.")

Lens 8 · Stock-Price Catalysts (what moves AEE)

Pattern over recent years and the live catalysts (mostly ``):

• Missouri rate cases / regulatory orders — the dominant catalyst. The April 2025 MoPSC electric rate order (effective June 1 2025) drove the bulk of the 2025 earnings step-up. Future MO/IL rate orders and the data-center rate-case mechanics are the events that move the stock.
• Data-center load announcements — the new swing factor. 2.2 GW of binding ESAs signed (Feb 2026); 3 GW of construction-agreement requests disclosed; Google's ~$15B Missouri data-center expansion with ratepayer protections. This is what drove J.P. Morgan's May 21 2026 upgrade to Overweight, PT $120→$126, explicitly citing AI data-center demand + constructive Missouri regulation.
• FERC transmission ROE decisions — the October 2024 FERC order cut the allowed base ROE and forced refunds (a 2025 headwind that then created an easy comp). FERC ROE is a recurring ±catalyst for the Transmission segment.
• Interest rates / the rate-sensitive utility trade — as a high-capex, high-leverage, dividend-yield name, AEE trades inversely to long rates; the 52-week range ($93.50–$115.59) largely reflects the macro rate trade as much as anything company-specific.
• Litigation resolution — the Rush Island Clean Air Act / DOJ settlement (2024 $45M charge, resolved April 2025 with Ameren agreeing not to seek ratepayer recovery) removed a multi-year overhang.

What it reveals: AEE reacts to regulators and rates far more than to quarterly EPS. The data-center thesis is the first genuinely new, idiosyncratic catalyst in years, and it is now the variable that re-rates (or de-rates) the stock.

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Phase C — Judge people & books

Lens 9 · Management

• CEO: Martin J. (Marty) Lyons, Jr. — Chairman, President & CEO. Long Ameren insider (former CFO, became CEO in 2022). Archetype: professional-manager / lifer operator, not a founder. For a regulated utility this is exactly the right archetype — the job is disciplined capital deployment and regulatory relationship management, not visionary risk-taking.
• Track record: delivered 2025 EPS $5.35 vs $4.42 (+21%) and net income $1,456M vs $1,182M, executed the April 2025 Missouri rate order, settled the Rush Island litigation cleanly (no ratepayer recovery sought — a reputationally clean outcome), and — the signature move — landed the data-center load with a protective large-load tariff and stepped the capital plan up to $31.8B. That is strong, on-strategy execution.
• Capital allocation: the entire game is reinvest into rate base. 2025 capex $4,128M; five-year plan $31.8B / up to $33.1B at the high end per the 10-K (Missouri up to ~$22B) — note the two figures and that capex is rising. Dividend raised to $3.00 annualised (75¢/qtr) in Feb 2026 from $2.84, with a stated 50–60% payout target. No buybacks (correct — utilities issue equity, they don't retire it). Capital allocation is disciplined and orthodox; the risk is not misallocation but the sheer size of the spend relative to internally-generated cash (Lens 10).
• Skin in the game / insider ownership: insider-transactions.csv not on the research layer; insider ownership at a $30B regulated utility is structurally small — do not over-weight this lens for a name like AEE. n/a on exact ownership %.
• Red flags (governance): none material surfaced. No related-party deals, no promotional behaviour (the opposite — classic conservative utility comms), no strategy whiplash. The one thing to watch is whether the data-center growth narrative tempts a more aggressive capex/leverage posture than the balance sheet can carry at a BBB/Baa1 rating.

Lens 10 · Forensic Red Flags

Acting as a forensic analyst on a regulated utility — the accounting is heavily structured by regulatory mechanisms, so the "red flags" are different from an industrial.

• Negative free cash flow (structural, not a flag per se but the central financial fact): 2025 operating cash flow $3,353M vs capex $4,128M → FCF ≈ −$775M. CFO grew +$590M YoY. This gap is funded by issuing debt and equity — the filing confirms ongoing at-the-market (ATM) equity and forward-sale agreements, DRPlus, and employee-benefit-plan issuance expected through at least 2030. This is normal and expected for a growth utility, but it means: (a) perpetual shareholder dilution — 2024→2025 dilution cost ~8¢/sh; (b) total dependence on capital-markets access; (c) rising interest expense — interest charges $776M in 2025 vs $663M in 2024, +17%, and a noted +$144M increase in cash interest paid. The bear case lives here.
• Regulatory assets / deferral accounting (PISA, RESRAM, deferred interest): a large and growing part of "earnings" is the deferral of costs into regulatory assets to be recovered later (e.g. "previously deferred interest charges" added +17¢/sh in 2025). This is standard regulated-utility GAAP and is regulator-blessed, but it does mean reported earnings run ahead of cash and depend on the regulator continuing to honour the deferrals. PISA deferrals are explicitly capped (the filing notes incremental capex "could cause PISA deferrals to exceed" the cap) — a real, if technical, constraint.
• Deferred-tax revaluation flattered 2025 (~32¢/sh): the excess-deferred-income-tax revaluation benefit is a non-recurring tailwind that should not be extrapolated. Strip it and underlying growth is more like high-single-digit, consistent with the 6–8% guide.
• Cash flow vs earnings divergence: earnings up 23%, but FCF negative — by design. Not a fraud flag; a capital-intensity fact.
• Goodwill / SBC / receivables: nothing unusual surfaced; SBC is immaterial for a utility, and there is no non-GAAP "adjusted" gymnastics beyond the standard weather/one-time normalisation.

Regulatory findings (required sub-section):

• SEC Litigation Releases: none — verified via SEC EDGAR EFTS (LR) 2021-06-22 → 2026-06-22.
• SEC AAERs: none — same source/period.
• Item 3 Legal Proceedings (10-K): the material historical matter is the Rush Island Energy Center New Source Review / Clean Air Act litigation (EPA suit filed 2011 re: 2007–2010 modifications without PSD permits). Resolved via DOJ settlement — a $45M mitigation charge hit 2024 earnings, and on April 23 2025 the MoPSC approved a unanimous stipulation under which Ameren will not seek ratepayer recovery of the mitigation costs. Clean resolution; overhang removed.
• Non-SEC enforcement (web search, "Ameren (FTC OR DOJ OR FDA OR CFPB OR consent decree OR settlement OR fine OR penalty) enforcement"): the only material hit is the DOJ/EPA Rush Island Clean Air Act matter above — now settled. No FTC/CFPB/other actions found.
• Net: No open material regulatory or legal findings — verified via SEC EDGAR EFTS (LR, AAER), web search, and 10-K Item 3 as of 2026-06-22. The one historical environmental case is closed.

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Phase D — Project & stress-test

Lens 11 · Forward Projection (FY2026 / FY2027 / FY2028 EPS)

Built bottom-up off the 2025 actual ($5.35) and management's own framework: 6–8% EPS CAGR 2026→2030 off the 2026 guidance midpoint, ~10.6% rate-base CAGR. Fiscal year = calendar year.

Base inputs:

• 2026 = management midpoint $5.35 (guidance $5.25–$5.45). Note this is flat on 2025's $5.35 actual — because 2025 contained the ~32¢ non-recurring deferred-tax benefit, so 2026 "flat" is actually solid underlying growth.
• Apply 7% CAGR (midpoint of the 6–8% guide) from 2026 forward.
• Rate-base growth ~10.6% funds it; equity dilution ~1–2%/yr is the main drag; interest expense rising with debt is the other.

All projection outputs ``; arithmetic shown. Base FY2028 ≈ $6.13.

Brier forecast (logged conceptually; not creating in --watchlist per skill rules): AEE FY2026 GAAP diluted EPS ≥ $5.35, p≈0.70, resolves 2026-12-31. (Rationale: midpoint guidance reaffirmed at Q1 with Q1 already +20%; the risk is weather + the 2025 deferred-tax comp, hence not higher than 0.70.) No forecast.ts create run — breadth/watchlist mode.

Lens 12 · Bull vs Bear

Bull case. Ameren is a regulated-monopoly compounder with a brand-new secular growth leg. The moat (legal franchise + constructive MO/IL/FERC mechanisms: PISA, RESRAM, CWIP-in-rate-base) is permanent and protects the earnings stream. On top of that boring base, AI data centers have signed 2.2 GW of binding, take-or-pay (80%/12-yr) load — real, contracted demand that pulls the capital plan ($31.8B, rising toward ~$33B) and rate base (~10.6% CAGR) higher, under-writing 6–8% EPS growth + a 2.7% dividend raised to $3.00 with a 50–60% payout. Google's $15B Missouri commitment and the regulator-blessed large-load tariff mean the growth is captured with ratepayer protection, lowering political/regulatory risk. JPM's Overweight upgrade (PT $126) reflects the Street waking up to this. Earnings surprise vector: the IRP flags +$5B incremental investment opportunity by 2030 not yet fully in the base plan — capex (and therefore rate base and EPS growth) could ratchet up, not down.

Bear case (permanent-impairment risks):

1. Regulatory de-rating. The entire ROE depends on three regulators staying constructive amid acute affordability politics — and data centers loading the grid is precisely the kind of thing that triggers populist "why are my bills up?" backlash. A hostile Missouri PSC or Illinois ICC outcome (lower allowed ROE, denied deferrals, disallowed capex) permanently lowers the growth rate. This isn't tail risk; it's the base risk of the model.
2. The balance sheet / financing trap. FCF is −$775M and structurally negative; the plan is funded by perpetual debt + equity issuance through ≥2030. At BBB/Baa1, a rate spike or a capital-markets freeze raises financing cost (already +17% interest in 2025) and forces dilutive equity at low prices — directly compressing EPS growth. The bigger the data-center capex, the larger this dependency.
3. Data-center load doesn't fully materialise / churns. 2.2 GW signed is not 2.2 GW built and paying — hyperscaler plans get cut, delayed, or relocated. The 80% take-or-pay mitigates but does not eliminate this; an AI-capex air-pocket would deflate the entire re-rating thesis.

Pre-mortem (18 months out, thesis broke): the most likely failure is #1 + #2 together — a Missouri rate order comes in below expectations (affordability politics around data-center bills), and long rates stay high, so the stock de-rates from 20x to ~17x while EPS growth slips to the low end. The data-center load is real but ramps slower than the slides implied. Stock sits in the low-$90s.

Are multiples too high? ~20x forward for ~7% EPS growth + 2.7% yield is a ~10% total-return-at-fair-value name priced at a slight premium to peers. It is not expensive for the quality + the new growth optionality, but it is fully valued — there is little margin of safety, and the below-peer yield means you are paying up for growth that must show up.

Contrarian view (what the market is refusing to see): the consensus frames AEE as "utility + AI data-center upside = re-rate higher." The under-appreciated risk is the mirror image: data centers are the thing that politicises a previously sleepy regulatory relationship. The market is pricing the load as pure upside; it may instead be the catalyst that caps the allowed ROE as regulators force the hyperscalers (and the utility's shareholders) — not residential ratepayers — to bear the cost. The growth and the regulatory risk are the same variable.

Lens 13 · Devil's Advocate (short-seller)

Dismantling the bull case:

• What structurally breaks the model: an adverse shift in any of MO PSC / IL ICC / FERC on allowed ROE or cost deferral. The "earnings" are a regulatory construct (PISA/RESRAM deferrals, CWIP-in-rate-base, deferred interest); a regulator that tightens deferrals or cuts ROE breaks the growth algorithm overnight — and FERC already cut the transmission base ROE once (Oct 2024).
• Revenue concentration / what shifts: geographically concentrated in two states — there is no diversification cushion if Missouri or Illinois turns hostile. The new concentration is data-center load: a handful of hyperscalers now drive the incremental growth case. If two of them pause Missouri builds, the 2.2 GW headline shrinks and the re-rate reverses.
• Why the moat is weaker than bulls think: the franchise guarantees the level of earnings, not the growth or ROE. Bulls are capitalising a 6–8% growth rate at a premium multiple as if it were contractual. It is not — it is granted, rate case by rate case, by politically-appointed/elected commissions, in a rising-affordability-anger environment.
• Most dangerous thing bulls underestimate: the financing math. This is a company that must raise external capital every year to fund a plan that exceeds its cash generation, while interest expense is already climbing 17%. In a higher-for-longer rate world, the dilution + interest drag can quietly eat 150–250 bps off the EPS growth rate, turning a "7% grower" into a "4–5% grower" — at which point 20x is plainly too high.
• Worst capital-allocation pressure: none historically (no value-destroying M&A, no buyback-at-peak). The forward risk is over-building into the data-center narrative and stretching the balance sheet past the BBB/Baa1 rating, forcing either a downgrade (higher cost of capital) or a dilutive equity raise.
• Assumptions that must hold for today's $108 price: (1) MO/IL/FERC stay constructive; (2) data-center load builds and pays roughly on schedule; (3) capital markets stay open at reasonable cost; (4) long rates don't spike. Break any one and the 20x multiple is at risk.
• If growth disappoints 20–30%: 7% → ~5% EPS CAGR + a multiple de-rate to ~17x → fair value drops toward the low-to-mid $90s (consistent with the 52-week low of $93.50). ~15% downside.
• Single permanent-impairment scenario: a structurally adverse Missouri regulatory regime change (e.g. legislation rolling back PISA/CWIP, or a commission that systematically under-earns the utility on affordability grounds) — plausibility low-to-moderate, but it is the scenario that would re-rate AEE from a premium grower to a sub-peer utility for years.

Lens 14 · Management Questions (ordered by information value)

1. Of the 2.2 GW of signed data-center ESAs, how much is contractually committed (take-or-pay) vs. conditional, and what is the quarter-by-quarter energisation schedule through 2030?
2. What allowed-ROE and cost-recovery outcome are you assuming for the next Missouri electric rate case, and how much of the 6–8% EPS CAGR depends on that single assumption?
3. How do you fund the $31.8B (→$33B) plan to 2030 without a credit-rating downgrade — what is the planned debt/equity split, and what annual equity issuance ($ and % dilution) is embedded in the 6–8% guide?
4. The IRP flags +$5B incremental investment by 2030 — what regulatory and load milestones convert that into the plan, and what is the EPS-growth uplift if it does?
5. With data centers loading the grid, how do you keep residential bills politically acceptable so the regulatory relationship stays constructive — and what happens to your plan if affordability politics force a lower large-load tariff?
6. What is the realistic in-service timeline and cost for the new Missouri gas generation (and CWIP-in-rate-base treatment), and where are the interconnection/permitting bottlenecks?
7. How exposed is the renewable/storage build to IRA tax-credit eligibility and equipment supply — what's the downside to EPS if domestic-content/material rules tighten?
8. What is the sensitivity of the plan to long-term interest rates — for every +100 bps, what is the hit to EPS growth from incremental financing cost?
9. On new nuclear (1.5 GW by 2045) and the Callaway licence extension — what capital, what timeline, and how do you de-risk single-source nuclear-fuel supply?
10. How much of 2025's EPS was non-recurring (deferred-tax revaluation ~32¢) and what is the clean underlying growth base you're compounding 6–8% from?
11. What are the PISA deferral cap mechanics, and at what capex level do incremental deferrals exceed the cap and create regulatory lag?
12. Where could the dividend payout (50–60%) go if the capex plan ratchets up — would you let payout drift down to fund growth?
13. What is the current regulatory-asset balance, and how much of reported earnings is cash vs. deferral in 2026?
14. What scenario would make you slow the capital plan — what's the governor on growth?
15. Beyond data centers, what is your weather-normalised, organic load-growth assumption (electrification, EVs) underpinning the base case?

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