Consolidated Edison

Phase A — Understand the business

Lens 1 · Company Overview

Con Edison is, after a half-decade of deliberate simplification, a pure-play regulated electric, gas, and steam delivery utility for New York City and its northern suburbs — one of the cleanest regulated-utility business models in the US. It is a holding company (Con Edison, Inc., NYSE: ED) that operates only through its subsidiaries.

The three operating pieces:

• CECONY (Consolidated Edison Company of New York) — the engine, ~94% of 2025 net income. Provides electric service to ~3.7 million customers across all of NYC except part of Queens, plus most of Westchester (a ~660 sq-mi area serving >9 million people); gas to ~1.1 million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of Queens, and Westchester; and steam to ~1,490 customers in Manhattan via the largest steam distribution system in the United States (~16,975 MMlb/year).
• O&R (Orange & Rockland, incl. NJ subsidiary RECO) — electric to ~0.3 million customers in southeastern NY / northern NJ, gas to >0.1 million in southeastern NY.
• Con Edison Transmission (CET) — historically a portfolio of minority stakes in electric/gas transmission JVs; now being wound down (see Lens 5: MVP and Honeoye sold in 2026).

How it makes money — the regulated-utility flywheel. ED does not profit from selling energy; it earns a regulated return on the capital it sinks into the delivery network (poles, wires, pipes, substations, meters). Each utility operates under multi-year rate plans approved by the NYSPSC (and NJBPU for RECO). The regulator sets allowed revenue = rate base × pre-tax weighted-average cost of capital, where rate base ≈ net plant + working capital + certain regulatory assets − deferred taxes. The allowed return on the equity slice (ROE) and the equity ratio are the two numbers that matter most.

Contract / payment structure — the key to the model's safety. Revenues are insulated from volume by design:

• Revenue decoupling mechanisms (RDM) on NY electric and gas: actual delivery revenue is trued-up to the authorized level, so a warm winter or a recession does not dent delivery revenue.
• Weather normalization on gas and steam.
• Full pass-through of commodity costs — fuel, purchased power, and gas-for-resale are recovered from customers on a current basis and "do not generally affect Con Edison's results of operations". So when the income statement shows revenue rising on "higher purchased power," that is a wash, not earnings.

The practical read: ED's earnings are an almost mechanical function of (rate base × allowed ROE × equity ratio), achieved if management runs the system inside the plan. It is about as close to a regulated annuity as US equities offer. Customers can pick a competitive energy supplier (in 2025, 56% of CECONY electricity and 33% of gas was bought from third parties ) — but they still pay CECONY for delivery either way.

Lens 2 · Supply Chain

A delivery utility's "supply chain" is the physical grid plus the wholesale energy it buys to serve full-service customers and the capital inputs to expand the network. Named stakeholders along the chain:

• Upstream — wholesale energy & system operation. Most electricity CECONY delivers to full-service customers is purchased through the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) wholesale market; the Utilities sold all their generating plants in the 1990s restructuring (except steam-coupled units). NYISO controls the bulk transmission and dispatch. Gas is bought under firm supply/transport contracts; the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was a CET minority interest (now sold).
• The asset itself. $68.5B gross utility plant (electric $44.5B / gas $16.1B / steam $3.3B / general $4.6B). The "suppliers" here are EPC contractors, equipment OEMs (transformers, switchgear, smart meters/AMI), and the welding/pipefitting trades — the gas-main-weld scandal (Lens 10) is a chokepoint failure in exactly this layer (third-party welding contractors).
• Capital markets are a critical input. Because the build-out vastly exceeds internal cash, ED's true "supply chain" includes the debt and equity markets: in 2025 it issued $1,150M long-term debt and $1,308M of common stock to fund capex. Ratings agencies (Moody's, S&P, Fitch) are gatekeepers of cost-of-capital.
• Downstream — the customer & the regulator. End customers are NYC/Westchester ratepayers; the gatekeeper between ED and its revenue is the NYSPSC (and NJBPU). The regulator is simultaneously ED's pricing authority, its safety enforcer, and — increasingly (Lens 12) — a political actor responding to affordability backlash.

Chokepoints / single-source dependencies: (1) The single-state regulatory concentration — virtually all earnings ride on NYSPSC decisions. (2) Continuous capital-market access — a downgrade or a frozen market would force capex cuts or dilution. (3) The aging gas network's integrity (welds, leaks) is a physical chokepoint with regulatory and criminal-liability tails.

Lens 3 · Competitive Advantages (moats)

ED's moat is a legal monopoly, which is the strongest and the most boring moat in the market. There is no competition for delivery service in its franchise territory — by statute, substantially all NY electric/gas delivery is provided by one of five investor-owned utilities or two state authorities, and within NYC + Westchester that is CECONY.

• Barriers to entry: absolute. No rational entrant would build a duplicate grid under Manhattan. The asset base ($55.4B net plant) is irreplaceable and the franchise is granted by the state.
• Switching costs: total at the delivery layer. Customers can change their energy supplier but never their wire/pipe owner. RDM further means even efficiency/conservation does not erode CECONY's delivery revenue within a plan term.
• The catch — bargaining power runs the WRONG way. This is the crucial nuance. A normal monopoly has pricing power; a regulated monopoly hands its pricing power to the regulator in exchange for a guaranteed (capped) return. ED's "bargaining power over customers" is exercised through a political-administrative process, and in 2025 that process visibly constrained it: after ~20,000 mostly-opposed public comments, the NYSPSC cut CECONY's rate request by roughly 34% on electric and ~60% on gas versus the ask. The moat protects the existence of the cash flow; it does not protect its size — that is set by a regulator under affordability pressure.
• Over suppliers: moderate. As a large, investment-grade buyer ED has scale, but it is a price-taker in NYISO wholesale and competes with every other utility for EPC labor and transformers in a supply-constrained equipment market.

Durable moat verdict: the cash flow is fortress-grade; the growth rate of that cash flow is a regulated negotiation, not a competitive advantage. That is the entire investment debate in one line.

Lens 4 · Segments

2025 vs 2024, net income for common stock by segment:

By utility line within CECONY (operating revenues, 2025): Electric $11,670M · Gas $3,278M · Steam $703M (total CECONY $15,651M; consolidated $16,918M). Electric is ~75% of CECONY revenue and the dominant rate-base growth story; gas is a managed-decline business under NY decarbonization; steam is a small, structurally challenged niche (steam volumes −3.4% in 2025; long-run actual ROE on steam has been weak — e.g. a −0.10% ROE year in the prior plan's Yr.10 ).

Trend & cause: CECONY earnings are accelerating modestly on rate-base growth — the 2025 GAAP bridge attributes +$0.28 EPS to higher electric rate base and +$0.06 to gas rate base, partly offset by −$0.18 of share dilution and −$0.11 of higher interest. The 2023 reported EPS of $7.25 is not comparable — it was inflated by an $865M pre-tax gain on the Clean Energy Businesses sale; on an adjusted basis the trajectory is clean: $5.07 (2023) → $5.40 (2024) → $5.70 (2025), ~6% CAGR.

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Phase B — Measure performance

Lens 5 · Earnings Result (latest print: Q1 2026, filed 2026-05-07)

Headline: Q1 2026 net income for common stock $924M, EPS $2.55 (diluted $2.54), up from $791M / $2.26 in Q1 2025. On the surface a ~13% beat. In substance, the quality is poor and this is the most important finding in the dossier.

The entire YoY increase is a one-time gain: $134M / $0.37 per share after-tax on the sale of Con Edison's equity interest in Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), booked in Con Edison Transmission. Net proceeds were $358M; pre-tax gain $189M.

Strip it out and the core utility went backwards:

• CECONY EPS fell to $2.02 from $2.13. The bridge: +$0.04 higher electric rate base, +$0.04 higher gas rate base, −$0.08 from share dilution, −$0.08 from higher O&M, −$0.03 higher interest. Rate-base growth was entirely eaten by dilution + cost inflation + interest.
• O&R was the bright spot: +$0.01 to $0.14 on the January 2025 base-rate increases.

So the franchise's organic Q1 earnings power declined YoY; the print only "beat" because of an asset sale that will not recur. Management reaffirmed full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $6.00–$6.20. The market saw through it — the stock weakened into May and Morgan Stanley cut its target to $99 (Underweight).

FY2025 (the annual print) for completeness: total operating revenues $16,918M (+10.9%); operating income $2,935M; net income for common $2,023M; adjusted EPS $5.70 vs $5.40 (+5.6%). Margins are not a meaningful lens for a cost-pass-through utility (reported revenue swings with commodity prices). Balance-sheet & cash-flow flags below feed Lens 10.

Lens 6 · Earnings Calls (sentiment trend)

No transcripts are on the research shelf (transcripts/ empty), so this is web/filing-inferred and labeled accordingly. Management's stated framing is remarkably stable across recent quarters and the 10-K: "Con Edison seeks to provide shareholder value through continued dividend growth, supported by earnings growth in regulated utilities". The consistent talking points: the new 2026–2028 rate plan, the 6–7% five-year adjusted-EPS CAGR target, the multi-year capital plan, and "affordability" (a defensive theme management now leads with, reflecting the rate-case backlash).

What they have stopped emphasizing: the Clean Energy Businesses and Con Edison Transmission growth stories — both deliberately exited (CEB sold 2023; MVP/Honeoye sold 2026). The tone shift over ~2 years is from "diversified clean-energy + transmission optionality" to "we are a clean, simple, regulated NY pure-play that grows the dividend." That is a credibility-positive simplification, but it also removes the only non-regulated upside optionality from the story.

Lens 7 · Comps

Peer table — large-cap US regulated electric/multi-utilities. Multiples are `` (mixed sources, ~Q2 2026) or n/a. Do not treat these as a single consistent vintage — they are assembled from multiple outlets and rounded.

5-year average ROE: n/a as a clean figure across the peer set. ED's allowed ROE in the new plan is 9.40% and actual delivered ROEs by line have run ~9.0–9.9% — i.e. it earns close to its allowed return, the mark of a well-run utility but also a hard ceiling.

Read: ED trades at a forward P/E (~17.5–18.6x) toward the high end of the regulated-utility band despite carrying the lowest structural growth rate (6–7% vs DUK/SO/XEL often guiding 6–8%+ with bigger Sunbelt/data-center tailwinds). Investors pay up for ED's perceived safety, dividend-aristocrat status, and the NYC franchise. On EV/EBITDA (~10.5–11.2x) it looks cheaper than DUK/SO — but that partly reflects its lower growth and the political overhang. P/B is high (~1.5x book; book ≈ $67/share vs ~$99 price ).

Lens 8 · Stock-Price Catalysts (what moves ED >5%)

ED is a low-beta name; >5% single-day moves are rarer than for cyclicals and are almost always rate-driven, not company-execution-driven:

• Interest rates / 10-year Treasury — the dominant driver. As a bond proxy with a ~3.3% yield, ED de-rates when long rates rise and re-rates when they fall. The 2021–2025 5-year total shareholder return was +64.5%, vs S&P 500 +96.0% — it lagged the index but roughly matched the S&P Utilities (+59.1%), confirming it trades as a rate-sensitive utility, not a grower.
• Rate-case outcomes — the January 2026 NYSPSC order (allowed ROE 9.40%, equity ratio 48%, but a sharply cut revenue request after public backlash) was the single most important fundamental event of the cycle.
• Sell-side rating changes — Morgan Stanley cut to $99 / Underweight and Mizuho downgraded in 2026, pressuring the stock.
• One-time asset sales — MVP/Honeoye exits (2026) and the Clean Energy Businesses sale (2023, $865M gain) created reported-EPS noise.
• Storms / safety incidents — major storms and the gas-weld investigation are tail catalysts (reputational + cost).

Pattern: the market reacts to the cost of capital and the regulator, not to "growth." There is no single customer, product cycle, or technology that swings this stock.

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Phase C — Judge people & books

Lens 9 · Management

• CEO: Timothy P. Cawley (age 61), Chairman, President & CEO since January 2022; a long-tenured Con Edison insider (President/CEO from Dec 2020). Career operator, not a financial-engineer outsider — appropriate for a utility where safety and regulatory relationships dominate.
• Track record: Under Cawley, ED executed the strategic simplification to a pure-play regulated utility — completing the $4B+ Clean Energy Businesses sale (2023), exiting MVP and Honeoye (2026), and de-risking the equity story. Adjusted EPS compounded ~6% (2023→2025) and the dividend was raised again — disciplined, on-plan delivery.
• Skin in the game: insider ownership is modest in dollar terms (typical of a large-cap utility; insider-transactions.csv not on shelf). This is an institution-owned, management-stewarded company, not a founder-owned one.
• Capital-allocation history: textbook regulated-utility allocation — reinvest internally-generated funds + new debt + new equity into rate base, and grow the dividend. No empire-building; the recent moves were divestitures that simplified the story. The one allocation tension is the heavy reliance on equity issuance ($1.3B in 2025; ~$1.1B planned 2026; up to ~$3.3B 2028–2030 ) — necessary to fund capex while protecting the balance sheet, but a persistent ~3–4%/yr drag on per-share growth (the −$0.18 EPS dilution line in 2025).
• Comp: Cawley earned ~$19.9M in 2025 — high in absolute terms and a lightning rod given the affordability backlash, but not an outlier for a ~$39B-cap utility CEO.
• Red flags: none of the governance/promotional variety. The legitimate concerns are (a) the gas-weld oversight failure happened on this team's watch (third-party contractor fraud, but CECONY owns the oversight), and (b) the long-running NYSPSC income-tax accounting audit predates Cawley but remains unresolved (Lens 10).
• Archetype: professional-manager steward of a regulated annuity. Exactly right for the stage; do not expect (or want) founder-style risk-taking.

Lens 10 · Forensic Red Flags

Forensic posture. For a regulated utility the accounting risks are different from a normal company — the income statement is heavily shaped by regulatory assets/liabilities (timing items the regulator lets the utility defer and recover). The honest read: ED's accounting is clean and conservative, but capital-intensive and increasingly cash-negative before financing.

• Cash flow vs earnings — the central tension. 2025 operating cash flow was $4,800M; utility capex was $4,764M plus $481M cost-of-removal. So free cash flow before dividends was roughly −$445M — and ED then paid $1,166M of dividends. The gap is plugged by debt + equity issuance ($1,150M debt + $1,308M equity in 2025). This is normal and sustainable for a regulated utility in a heavy build cycle — the capex earns a regulated return — but it means the dividend is funded by external capital, not by free cash flow, and the model breaks if capital-market access or the allowed ROE deteriorates. With capex ramping to $6.6B→$8.6B/yr through 2030, the external-financing need (and dilution) intensifies.
• Leverage: total debt ~$27.9B (long-term $25,551M + current maturities $250M + term loan $500M + notes payable $1,575M) against equity of $24,190M — ~54% debt. Investment-grade and rate-base-supported; ratings Con Edison issuer Baa1 / A- / BBB+; CECONY senior unsecured A3 / A- / A-. Not a balance-sheet risk today, but interest expense ($1,233M net in 2025) is a growing headwind as cheap debt rolls into 5%+ coupons (plan cost-of-LT-debt rises 4.78%→5.01% across the new plan years).
• Receivables / allowance: accounts receivable–customers $2,583M with a $507M uncollectible allowance (down from $620M) — large in absolute terms (a NYC affordability signal), but recoverable through rate-plan reconciliation mechanisms, so not an earnings risk.
• Regulatory assets/liabilities: $5,702M assets vs $5,623M liabilities — roughly netting, normal for the sector. Notable: a $1,049M (CECONY) income-tax regulatory asset that is NOT earning a return, tied to the unresolved NYSPSC focused audit (below).
• SBC / non-GAAP games: minimal. ED's adjusted-EPS reconciliation strips small items (MVP accretion, impairments, transaction costs) — the adjustments are immaterial ($2,038M adjusted vs $2,023M GAAP in 2025) and not used to flatter a weak core. This is honest non-GAAP.
• Goodwill: only $406M — trivially small, no impairment risk.

Regulatory findings (required sub-section):

• SEC Litigation Releases / AAERs: None. EDGAR EFTS search (LR + AAER, 2021–2026) returned zero findings for Consolidated Edison.
• Item 3 (Legal Proceedings), FY2025 10-K: cross-references "Other Regulatory Matters" (Note B), Superfund/Asbestos (Note G), and "Manhattan Explosion and Fire" (Note H). Three live matters of note:

1. Gas/steam main weld investigation (2023–present). CECONY discovered non-conforming gas/steam main welds in Queens; third-party contractors substituted duplicate weld films / created poor-quality films — two contractor employees were indicted for wire fraud (SDNY, August 2025). The NYSDPS is investigating CECONY's weld-compliance oversight, which "could result in adverse regulatory action." The new rate plan puts $33.3M/yr of gas revenue ($100M over 2026–2028) subject to refund pending the outcome. CECONY says it cannot estimate the possible loss. Material open contingency.
2. NYSPSC focused income-tax audit (initiated January 2018, still open). Investigates an inadvertent understatement of historical federal income-tax expense for ratemaking, which created a $1,049M (CECONY) / $10M (O&R) regulatory asset that earns no return. Management believes it is recoverable through future rates (IRS normalization safe-harbor) but would impair part of the asset if the NYSPSC orders a write-down. Unestimated. Slow-burning tail risk.
3. Manhattan Explosion and Fire (Note H) — legacy litigation contingency.

• Non-SEC enforcement (web): a $4.3M DPS penalty for renewable-energy-credit errors; a $750K settlement (March 2025) over handling of discrimination complaints from female field workers; the historical $153M East Harlem gas-explosion settlement (2014 incident). None individually material to a $39B company, but the pattern (welds, RECs, safety culture) is a reputational/regulatory-relationship liability that matters precisely because the regulator sets the ROE.

Net forensic verdict: books are clean; the risk is structural (cash-negative build funded by dilution + debt) and regulatory (open weld + income-tax matters), not fraudulent. No accounting red flag would keep me out; the financing model and political exposure are the real watch-items.

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Phase D — Project & stress-test

Lens 11 · Forward Projection

Built bottom-up from FY2025 adjusted EPS of $5.70 and management's reaffirmed 2026 adjusted-EPS guidance of $6.00–$6.20 and 6–7% five-year CAGR target. The drivers are mechanical: rate base compounds as the $6.6B→$8.6B/yr capex lands at a 9.40% allowed ROE / 48% equity ratio, partly offset by ~3–4%/yr share dilution and rising interest cost.

Fiscal years FY2026 / FY2027 / FY2028 (adjusted EPS):

• Base (mid-guidance, then ~6.5% growth): FY26 ~$6.10 (midpoint of $6.00–$6.20 ); FY27 ~$6.50; FY28 ~$6.92. This assumes the new rate plan delivers as designed, dilution stays ~3–4%, and no adverse weld/tax ruling.
• Bull (top of guidance + 7.5% on data-center load + benign rates): FY26 ~$6.20, FY27 ~$6.66, FY28 ~$7.16. Requires NYC data-center/electrification demand to lift rate-base growth and the regulator to stay constructive.
• Bear (rate-case backlash compresses earned ROE, heavier dilution, a weld/tax charge): FY26 ~$5.90, FY27 ~$6.07, FY28 ~$6.25.

Reality check vs consensus: Street 2026 EPS ~$6.01–$6.09, i.e. consensus sits at the low end of guidance, validating a base case near $6.05–$6.10.

Per --watchlist rules, no forecast.ts create is logged in breadth mode. If promoted to a thesis, the base-case Brier forecast to log would be: "ED FY26 adjusted EPS ≥ $6.00, p≈0.80, resolves 2026-12-31."

Lens 12 · Bull vs Bear

Bull case. ED is the highest-quality regulated annuity in US equities — a legal monopoly over the NYC grid with full revenue decoupling and commodity pass-through, so its cash flow is nearly recession- and weather-proof. It is a Dividend Aristocrat with the longest dividend-increase streak of any S&P 500 utility (~51 consecutive years), yielding ~3.3% and growing the payout ~5%/yr. The newly-approved 2026–2028 rate plan locks in a 9.40% allowed ROE and a rate base compounding into the high-$30Bs, underwriting the 6–7% EPS CAGR. A $38B 2025–2029 capital program — driven by grid hardening, electrification, and emerging NYC-area data-center load — is the rate-base growth engine, and it is de-risked because the regulator pre-approves the return. The strategic simplification (CEB, MVP, Honeoye all sold) removed the messy non-regulated parts. If long rates fall, this bond proxy re-rates higher. Total package: a ~9–10% total return (3.3% yield + ~6% growth) with bond-like volatility.

Bear case (permanent-impairment risks). (1) Political/affordability backlash is structural, not cyclical. The 2025 rate case drew ~20,000 mostly-opposed comments and the NYSPSC cut the request ~34% electric / ~60% gas. As NYC bills climb to fund $8B/yr of capex, the regulator faces escalating pressure to hold the allowed ROE down and disallow costs — quietly compressing the earned ROE below the allowed (Q1 2026 already showed CECONY EPS falling YoY as O&M outran rate relief). (2) The gas business has a terminal-value problem. NY's CLCPA (zero-emission grid by 2040) and the 2026 new-construction gas ban structurally shrink the gas franchise; ED must keep investing in a network that policy is designed to strand. (3) The dilution treadmill — funding a cash-negative build with ~$1B+/yr of equity issuance permanently caps per-share growth ~3–4% below rate-base growth. Pre-mortem (18 months out, thesis broke): the most likely failure is not a blowup — it is de-rating + earnings disappointment: long rates stay higher-for-longer (bond proxy de-rates), the next rate proceeding delivers a sub-9.4% ROE under affordability pressure, an adverse weld or income-tax ruling forces a charge, and ED prints FY27 EPS below the 6% line — the stock drifts to a ~4%+ yield (high-$80s) as it re-rates to its true low-growth profile. Multiples too high? Arguably yes on P/E (~17.5–18.6x for 6–7% growth is a full price for the safety). Contrarian view the market refuses to see: the consensus treats "regulated NYC monopoly" as pure safety, but the NYC-ness is becoming the risk — it is the most affordability-stressed, most aggressively-decarbonizing, most politically-scrutinized franchise in the country, which makes its allowed ROE the most likely in the sector to be squeezed even as its asset base is the safest.

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

Dismantling the bull case. What structurally breaks the way ED makes money? The regulator's pen. Every dollar of earnings is granted by the NYSPSC, and that body is now operating under intense, sustained political pressure from NYC affordability advocates. The short thesis is not fraud or a balance-sheet implosion — those won't happen. It is multiple-compression-plus-ROE-erosion: you are paying ~17.5–18.6x forward earnings and ~1.5x book for a business whose growth rate is decided by a politicized regulator and whose organic utility earnings already declined YoY in Q1 2026. The "beat" that quarter was a non-recurring MVP gain dressed up as a strong print — exactly the kind of low-quality earnings a skeptic flags.

• Revenue concentration: ~94% of earnings in one regulatory jurisdiction (NYSPSC). There is no diversification cushion — a single regulator's posture shift hits the whole company.
• Why the moat is weaker than bulls think: the monopoly protects existence, not return. Bulls conflate "can't be competed away" with "return is safe." The return is the most contested number in the company and trending the wrong way under affordability pressure.
• Most dangerous force bulls underestimate: not a competitor — the State of New York itself. Decarbonization policy (gas ban, CLCPA) makes ~20% of the asset base (gas) a managed-decline business ED must keep funding, and affordability politics caps what it can charge.
• Worst capital-allocation reality: the relentless equity issuance to fund a dividend the company doesn't free-cash-flow-cover. It's investment-grade and normal — but it means the celebrated "51-year dividend streak" is partly financed by selling new shares, a fact the dividend-aristocrat marketing obscures.
• Assumptions that must hold for today's price: (a) allowed ROE stays ~9.4%+ in every future case; (b) the regulator keeps approving ~$8B/yr of capex into rate base; (c) long rates fall or stay flat; (d) no material weld/income-tax charge. Break any one and the 6–7% growth narrative cracks.
• If growth disappoints 20–30% (say EPS growth of ~4% not 6.5%, plausible per the Q1 trend): the name de-rates toward a sector-average or below multiple and a ~4%+ yield → high-$80s, a ~10–15% drawdown with no offsetting growth to catch it.
• Single scenario that permanently impairs: a structural NYSPSC shift to persistently sub-allowed earned ROEs (cost disallowances + affordability-driven ROE cuts) — turning a 6–7% grower into a ~3–4% grower permanently, which is a genuine re-rating event, not a dip.

The short isn't "ED collapses." It's "ED is a low-growth bond proxy priced like a quality grower, with its single regulator turning hostile — so it round-trips to a higher yield."

Lens 14 · Management Questions (ordered by information value)

1. In the January 2026 plan you were granted a 9.40% allowed ROE, but CECONY's Q1 2026 EPS fell YoY as O&M and dilution outran rate relief — what is your earned ROE trending toward in 2026, and how do you defend it against the affordability-driven cost pressure?
2. Given ~20,000 mostly-opposed comments and a request cut ~34%/~60%, what is your honest base case for the allowed ROE in the next rate cycle (2029+) — do you expect the NYSPSC to hold 9.4%, or is the sector's NY premium-ROE era ending?
3. You funded a negative-FCF build with $1.3B of equity in 2025 and ~$3.3B more planned through 2030 — at what point does the dilution drag make the 6–7% EPS CAGR unachievable, and what is your per-share (not absolute) rate-base growth target?
4. The gas business faces the CLCPA and the 2026 gas ban — what is your gas rate base in 2030 vs today, and how do you avoid stranded-asset write-downs as you keep investing in a network the state is phasing out?
5. On the gas/steam weld investigation: what is the realistic range of regulatory penalty and disallowance, and why should investors trust your contractor-oversight controls now?
6. The NYSPSC income-tax audit has been open since 2018 with a $1,049M non-earning regulatory asset at stake — what is the probability the Commission orders a write-down, and what would that do to book value and the equity ratio?
7. How much of your 2026–2030 capex is data-center / electrification load growth vs maintenance/hardening, and how firm is that demand (signed interconnections vs forecasts)?
8. With cost-of-long-term-debt rising 4.78%→5.01% across the plan, how much does refinancing legacy low-coupon debt subtract from EPS growth through 2030?
9. Your dividend is not covered by free cash flow today — at what payout ratio / rate-base inflection does it become self-funding, and is the ~5% dividend-growth rate sustainable without accelerating issuance?
10. What is the strategic logic for staying a pure NY pure-play rather than diversifying jurisdictions (à la peers) to reduce single-regulator concentration?
11. After exiting CEB, MVP, and Honeoye, is Con Edison Transmission effectively wound down, or is there a remaining transmission strategy (e.g., interregional lines for offshore wind)?
12. How exposed is the 2026–2030 plan to equipment supply constraints (transformers, switchgear) and EPC labor inflation, and is that risk inside or outside the rate plan?
13. What is the steam business's long-term future given chronic sub-allowed ROEs and declining volumes — invest, harvest, or exit?
14. How do you think about share buybacks (you bought back $1B in 2023) versus continued issuance — is there any path to per-share value creation beyond rate base?
15. If long rates stay elevated and the stock yields >4%, does management's capital plan flex, or do you keep issuing equity into a depressed price?

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