Christopher T. Forsythe
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Atmos Energy
Thank you, Kevin, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning.
As Kevin mentioned, our fiscal '23 first-quarter net income was $272 million or $1.91 per diluted share. Consolidated operating income increased to $321 million or 16% in the first quarter. Our first quarter performance largely reflects positive rate outcomes driven by system modernization spending, continued customer growth in our distribution segment, partial offset by higher O&M spending in both of our segments.
Slide 5 summarizes the key performance drivers for each of our operating segments. Rate increases in both of our operating segments driven by increased safety and reliability spending totaled $79 million. Residential customer growth and increased industrial load increased operating income by an additional $5.5 million, and we saw a $5 million increase in APT's three-system [Phonetic] business due to water spreads driven by maintenance and some of the key takeaway pipelines in the Permian during the quarter.
Consolidated O&M expense increased $26 million, driven by planned higher in-line inspection spending in APT, higher spending for third-party damage prevention activities on our distribution system and increased employee and other administrative costs. Consolidated capital spending increased 16% to $111 million to $796 million with 88% dedicated to improve the safety and reliability of our system. This increase primarily reflects higher spending at APT, the project that Kevin discussed just a few minutes ago.
We continue to execute our annual regulatory filing strategy. To date, we have implemented $115 million in annualized regulatory outcomes and we currently have about $36 million in progress. Slides 19 through 23 summarize those outcomes, and Slide 16 outlines our planned filings for the reminder of the fiscal year.
During the quarter, we completed over $1 billion of long-term debt and equity financing, highlighted by the $800 million long-term debt financing we completed in October 2022 and $200 million in settled equity forward agreements. As of December 31, we have approximately $755 million of net proceeds available under existing forward sales arrangements that will fully satisfy our anticipated fiscal '23 equity needs and a significant portion of our anticipated fiscal '24 needs.
Finally, to mitigate interest rate risk associated with our anticipated long-term debt financing needs beyond fiscal '23, we currently have about $1.35 billion in forward starting interest rate swaps to effectively set a portion of treasury component of our total cost of financing at rates ranging from 1.8% to 2.2%. All of this gives us a clear line of sight into our anticipated financing costs of fiscal '23 and a portion of our costs beyond fiscal '23
Our equity capitalization as of December 31, excluding the $2.2 billion of winter storm financing was 60%. Additionally, we finished the quarter with approximately $3.4 billion of liquidity. Additional details for our financing activities as well as our financial profile can be found on Slides 7 through 10.
Turning now to securitization. In Texas, the Texas Public Financing Authority and the Bond Review Board continue to work diligently to determine the best outcome for customers with respect to securitization. Additionally, in January, the Texas legislature signaled intent to provide funding to gas and other costs incurred during winter storm Uri that were deemed prudently incurred by the Texas Railroad Commission in November 2021. We are encouraged with these developments and continue to support their efforts. However, we do not anticipate receiving securitization funds for interim winter storm financing matures on March 9. We currently anticipate refinancing this debt through a combination of the syndicated bank term loan and utilization of our existing credit facilities and cash to minimize the cost of the customer while providing maximum flexibility to repay this debt once the securitization process is completed.
Additionally, pursuant to an order issued by the Railroad Commission, we have deferred all carrying costs associated with the interim refinancing effective September 1, and currently intend to defer carrying costs associated with the existing financing and new interim financing until the securitization process is complete.
In Kansas, we received our financing order from the Kansas Corporation Commission in October 2022, and we are progressing well to securitize the approximately $90 million in gas and other costs incurred during winter storm Uri. We anticipate completing the securitization process this fiscal year.
In closing, we are off to a good start to the fiscal year. The execution of our operational, financial and regulatory plans in the first fiscal quarter positions us well to achieve our fiscal '23 earnings per share guidance in the range of $5.90 to $6.10. Details surrounding our fiscal '23 guidance can be found on Slides 12 and 13.
Thank you for your time this morning. I will now open up the call for questions. Michelle?
