John M. Moreira
Chief Financial Officer at Eversource Energy
Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I will discuss the details of the Aquarium sale, review 2024 earnings results along with a regulatory update, share our updated five-year capital investment plan and provide our 2025 EPS guidance, the five-year financing plan and our long-term earnings growth expectation.
Let me start on Slide 10 with a discussion of the details of the pending sale of Aquarion. As Joe mentioned, we are very pleased to have signed an agreement to sell this valuable asset. As we stated in the press release at the end of January, the aggregate enterprise value of the sale is approximately $2.4 billion.
This includes approximately $1.6 billion in cash and approximately $800 million of net-debt that we will extinguish at the closing. The aggregate value represents a multiple of 1.7 times 2024 rate base and is approximately 35 times expected 2025 earnings. This strong valuation will enable us to reduce parent company debt and thereby further strengthening the balance sheet.
We expect to file change of control applications in all three states within the next 30 to 45 days and anticipate a closing in late 2025. Now I'll review the 2024 results as shown on Slide 11. Our GAAP results for 2024 earnings of $2.27 per share compared with a GAAP loss of $1.26 per share in 2023.
Results for 2024 include an aggregate net after-tax loss of $2.30 per share-related to closing the sales of our offshore wind investment recognized in the 3rd-quarter, as well as the expected loss on the pending sale of Aquarion. As a reminder, results for 2023 included an aggregate after-tax loss of $5.60 per share that primarily related to losses on offshore wind investments excluding those after-tax losses, our non-GAAP earnings were $4.57 per share in 2024 as compared to $4.34 per share in 2023, a year-over-year growth rate of 5.3%.
As a reminder, our revised earnings guidance for 2024 was in the range of $4.52 to $4.60 per share. Breaking down the 2024 full-year earnings by segments, electric transmission earned $2.03 per share in 2024 as compared with earnings of $1.84 per share in 2023. The improved results were driven by continued investments in our electric transmission system to address service reliability. Our electric distribution earnings were $1.77 per share in '24 as compared with earnings of $1.74 per share in 2023.
The higher results were due primarily to increased revenues from base distribution rate increases for Eversource's Massachusetts and New Hampshire Electric businesses, partially offset by higher O&M, interest expense, depreciation and property taxes. The natural gas distribution business segment earned $0.81 per share in 2024 as compared to $0.64 per share in 2023. Improved results were due to higher base distribution rate increases at Eversource's Massachusetts natural gas businesses and continued investments in our gas system to replace agent infrastructure, partially offset by higher depreciation, interest and property tax expenses.
Excluding the loss on the pending sale of Aquarion of $0.83 per share, the Water Distribution segment earned $0.12 per share in 2024 compared with $0.09 per share last year. The increase in earnings was due primarily to lower depreciation expense as a result of final rate case decision, partially offset by lower authorized revenues. Eversource Parent and other company GAAP losses were $1.63 per share in 2024 as compared to GAAP losses of $5.57 per share in 2023. Non-GAAP losses were $0.16 per share in '24 as compared to non-GAAP earnings of $0.03 per share in 2023.
Lower non-GAAP results for the year were due to higher interest expense and the absence of a prior year net benefit from the sale of Eversource's interest in a clean-energy fund, which was -- which was partially offset by lower effective tax-rate. That wraps up 2024, a very transformative year for us despite the headwinds we face. We delivered another year of earnings growth and innovative solutions for our customers.
Moving on to the regulatory front, we had another very busy year with positive results. Our key 2024 regulatory items are highlighted on Slide 12. Starting with Massachusetts, we received approval of our first-rate base reset request for EGMA, implementing a revenue increase of $77 million effective November 1 of 2024 with an additional $62 million of revenue increase that will be effective later this year.
As a reminder, this adjustment was a key component of our 2020 settlement agreement when we acquired EGMA. We will have a second rate base roll-in in 2027. Also effective November 1 of 2024 was the approval of $12.7 million increase in revenues for Gas under the annual PBR adjustment mechanism. Again, in Massachusetts, under the annual PBR plan, we received approval of $56 million revenue increase for NSTAR Electric effective January 1 of 2025.
Turning to New Hampshire, we continue to work-through the rate review filing made last summer, where we requested an increase in distribution rates of $182 million, effective August 1 of 2025. As part of this proceeding, the New Hampshire PUC approved the settlement agreement for an interim rate increase of $61 million, million effective August 1 of 2024. The permanent rate request of $182 million includes the $61 million of temporary rate increase. Also included in this request is recovery of $247 million of deferred storm costs over a five-year period.
A decision on the New Hampshire rate case is expected in July for rates to be effective August 1 of 2025. As a reminder, the final rate decision will also provide a reconciling adjustment back to August 1 of 2024. In Connecticut, the rate review application to recover a revenue deficiency of $209 million, reflecting critical investments and cost increases since our previous rate review in 2018 continues to move along.
We are in the discovery phase of the proceeding with a schedule calling for hearings in May and a final decision expected in October. Next, let me discuss our updated five-year capital plan. As you can see on Slide 13, our new plan reflects a $1.9 billion increase in utility infrastructure investments for the years 2025 through 2028, the period that overlaps with our prior plan.
Please note that throughout this presentation, due to the pending sale of Aquarion, we have excluded those investments from our capital Plan. The $1.9 billion increase is primarily driven by higher electric transmission and higher electric distribution investments in Massachusetts, reflecting greater visibility in the work needed to serve our customers over the next four years. Turning to our updated five-year capital plan that runs from 2025 through 2029 as shown on Slide 14, which reflects our five-year utility infrastructure investments by segment. As a reminder, this plan includes only those projects that we have a clear line-of-sight on from a regulatory approval perspective. Over this five-year period that runs from 2025 through 2029, we expect to invest approximately $24.2 billion in our regulated electric and natural gas businesses. These investments will allow us to continue to provide customers with safe and reliable service, meet ongoing load growth and achieve progress on our state's clean-energy objectives. Excluding acquiring on from both time-frames, the 2025 through 2029 plan is an increase of $2.1 billion or a 10% increase from our previous five-year plan of $22.1 billion. From a segment standpoint, starting with transmission, the plan includes nearly $7 billion of transmission infrastructure investments over the next five years. These investments include replacement of agent infrastructure to harden the system and to increase resiliency during extreme weather events as well as innovative substation and other infrastructure projects undertaken for reliability and electrification purposes and interconnection projects adding diversified energy resources to the grid. This five-year transmission plan is greatly enabled by efforts in Massachusetts last year, including the state's Clean energy bill, which reformed siding and permitting of energy facilities as well as the Department of Public Utilities approval of the Electric Sector Modernization Plan or ESMP. Our transmission capital plan now includes engineering and development for future ESMP substations as well as significant ESMP substation investments towards the end-of-the five-year forecasted period. In fact, the ES&P gives us more visibility for transmission capital, allowing us to raise the back-end of our transmission capital forecast. We expect this trend to continue beyond the forecast period. Turning to electric distribution, our updated capital forecast now reflects over $10 billion of planned utility infrastructure investments with a continued focus on system resiliency and top-tier electric reliability for our customers. Our planned electric distribution investments include $850 million for AMI program in Massachusetts. This technology will enable near real-time communications and includes an operating system and application environment for distributed intelligence at the meter. These enhancements will allow customers to increasingly participate in the transformation of energy usage. On the natural gas side, the plan reflects nearly $6 billion of investments centered around reliability and safety. This plan is highlighted by the Steel and cast iron pipe replacement programs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Across the natural gas system, we'll continue to thoughtfully engage with our states to ensure investments enable an affordable transition to a clean-energy future. Rounding out our capital plan, our investments in technology and facilities forecasted at $1.2 billion, including AI and cybersecurity investments and tools to enable our employees to work more efficiently to serve customers. We are excited about the regulated opportunities this plan brings to Eversource and the positive impact it can have for our customers. We do see opportunities that could provide additional investment in the range of $1.5 billion to $2 billion within this forecast period. These opportunities include Connecticut AMI, solar generation, increased usage of EVs and LNG facility upgrades. As we have in the past, we will update our plan as these opportunities materialize. The resulting impact to rate base growth from the updated capital plan is shown on Slide 15. The customer-focused core business investments included in the capital plan results in an 8% growth in rate base from 2023 through 2029. Next, I will turn to our 2025 earnings guidance on Slide 16. We are projecting an earnings per share in the range of $4.67 to $4.82 for 2025. Positive drivers this year include transmission investment for system resiliency and to address increased electric demand, gas and electric distribution rate increases, rate case outcomes in New Hampshire and Connecticut and a strong focus on reducing O&M expenses from 2024 level. These positive drivers are expected to be partially offset by higher depreciation and property taxes from increased investment. Higher interest costs, impact of share dilution and higher effective tax-rate. As Joe stated, we continue to be laser-focused on improving our balance sheet. As you can see on Slide 17, we executed on all our cash-flow enhancing commitments for 2024 and 2025. As a result, we expect to see a significant improvement in our cash flows from operations of nearly 50% in 2025 as compared to 2024, primarily driven by timely recovery of regulatory deferrals and distribution rate increases that I previously discussed. With the recent announcement of our sale of Aquarion, the $1 billion of equity that we issued in 2024, along with the projection of minimal cash tax payments through 2028 and a higher-level of storm cost recoveries, our forecasted equity needs for 2025 through 2029 are expected to be approximately $1.2 billion. This $1.2 billion includes the remaining $300 million left on our previous equity issuance plan or said differently, incremental equity needs of $900 million from our previous equity guidance. This equity forecast is driven by the growth in our updated capital plan. Given our solid execution on our cash-flow enhancement commitments, including the expected proceeds from the Aquarion sale later this year, we expect to issue the majority of this $1.2 billion of equity towards the back-half of a five-year forecast period. This financing plan supports our FFO-to-debt ratio target well-above the Moody's downgrade threshold of 13% during the forecast period. Additionally, this financing plan assumes no incremental holding company debt issuances in 2025 and assumes paying-off $600 million of maturities in 2025 with internally generated cash and the expected proceeds from the acquiring on-sale. Turning to Slide 18, we are projecting the five-year long-term earnings per share growth rate to be in the range of 5% to 7% based off of 2024 non-GAAP recurring EPS of $4.57 per share. Given the headwinds in 2025, we expect the results to be a bit muted. However, our EPS growth profile will continue to strengthen as we execute on our strategic plan, which includes growth in transmission and distribution infrastructure investments that we are able to recover through constructive rig mechanisms as well as significant progress with the recovery Of deferred storm costs throughout the system and continued O&M cost discipline. Before we get to your questions, I'll turn the call-back over to Joe for his closing remarks.
