Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hydro One Limited second quarter 2019 analyst teleconference. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Omar Javed, Vice President, Investor Relations at Hydro One. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm here in Toronto with our President and CEO, Mark Poweska, and our Chief Financial Officer, Chris Lopez. We'll provide some brief comments on our second quarter results and then spend the majority of the call answering as many of your questions as time permits. There are also several slides that illustrate some of the points we'll go over in a moment. They should be up on the webcast now, or if you're dialed into the call, you can also find them on Hydro One's website in the investor relations section under events and presentations. Today's discussions will likely touch on estimates and other forward-looking information.
You should review the cautionary language in today's earnings release and our MD&A, which we filed this morning, regarding the various factors, assumptions, and risks that could cause our actual results to differ as they all apply to this call. With that, I turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Poweska.
Thank you, Omar, and thank you to everyone for joining us today and for dedicating your time to review our second quarter results. If you don't get a chance to ask a question near the end of this call, please keep in mind that Omar and his team remain available to you. After I review the highlights of the quarter, we will turn to Chris to review the financial results. It's been an incredible first three months in this role at Hydro One. Through a series of visits, I've had the honor to meet many of our employees, investors, government leadership, and indigenous community leaders, as well as our business and industry partners. Each time I'm reminded of the critical role that we play in creating a safe and reliable electricity system to support Ontario's growing communities and thriving economy.
In my first few days on the job, I committed to working together with our board of directors and management team to set a clear vision and strategy for a strong and successful Hydro One. During the initial stages of the strategy development process, I've focused on listening to and learning from our stakeholders. Visits with our shareholders across the electricity sector have provided valuable insights that are informing our path forward. As we continue to refine our corporate strategy, our direction remains clear. We must continue to focus on operational excellence, at the heart of which is building a strong and enduring safety culture. We must deliver exceptional customer service while improving power reliability, and we must take costs out of the system. Working together, I know that we can enhance a powerful organization that continues to meet the needs of our customers and our shareholders.
I look forward to presenting our strategy to you later this fall. I knew I was joining an organization with passionate people, but having been in the role now for a quarter, I am deeply impressed with what a results-driven and high-performing team we have. A strong and stable leadership team is critical to our success. While we had a period of planned executive transition last year, which extended into the second quarter of 2019, I am pleased that we continue to not only attract but also retain a high-caliber talent. We now have a dedicated management team in place to help us on the next phase of our journey. I'm delighted to share that three appointments to our executive leadership team that I've made over the last quarter that have enhanced the bench strength of our organization.
As you will recall, in early May, I appointed Chris Lopez as our Chief Financial Officer. Chris has a proven track record for delivering financial success with more than 20 years of experience in the utility industries. Saylor Millitz-Lee was promoted internally and assumed the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer in July. Saylor Millitz-Lee is an accomplished human resources professional with extensive experience within both Hydro One and in the private sector. As our Chief Human Resources Officer, Saylor Millitz-Lee will lead the development and implementation of effective strategies and programs designed to attract, motivate, and retain talent, and deliver business results through our talented workforce. I'm also pleased to announce that Paul Harricks has been appointed as Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer.
Paul is a highly experienced corporate lawyer with widely recognized expertise in the energy and infrastructure industries in both Canada and internationally. He's led the energy sector industry group at Gowling WLG since 2010 and also led the firm's infrastructure sector group. Our positive momentum over the past year is due in part to our strong leadership at the Board level. On behalf of the executive team and the Board, I'd like to thank our past Chair, Tom Woods, for his dedication and steady leadership through a period of significant transition. He's left the Board well-positioned to continue its important work, and we thank him for ensuring a smooth transition at the Board level. I'm also pleased to welcome Tim Hodgson as our new Chair. Tim, an existing member of our Board, is a highly qualified leader with deep business and policy experience.
Tim's proven capabilities will enable him to provide leadership to the board as they continue to carry out oversight responsibilities of Hydro One. We look forward to working with him. Earlier this week, we released our 2018 report on sustainability, in which we laid the foundation to building a strong long-term sustainability program, and we are proud of the significant progress we are making. This report is available on our website. During 2018, we strengthened our ability to manage our carbon footprint and adapt to changing climate conditions. The results of our efforts earned us recognition from Corporate Knights magazine, which ranked Hydro One 16th in its annual list of the best 50 companies for setting a high standard for leadership and sustainability in Canada. Hydro One is also one of only six utility companies in Canada to achieve the Sustainable Electricity Company designation from the Canadian Electricity Association.
We remain dedicated to operating in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible manner and continue to partner with our customers and stakeholders to build a bright future for all. Investments went well beyond poles and wires. New technologies and new partnerships were among the tools we used to modernize the grid, delivering services the public and industries need in order to build their communities and to grow the economy. Ties were strengthened with Indigenous communities across the province, and we increased our procurement spending with Indigenous businesses to CAD 39.4 million. This was an increase of 62% over the previous year. We know that our long-term performance depends on us incorporating sustainability in all aspects of our business, and I look forward to the progress we will continue to make over the next year.
On the customer service front, I'm pleased to report that our trend of increasing customer satisfaction scores continues. The scores among residential and small business customers hit a 10-year high during the first six months of 2019 at 85%, a 9% increase over 2018 results. This improved level of satisfaction is a result of better understanding our customer needs, preferences, and better reliability due to our forestry program, as well as investments in infrastructure and fewer weather-related outages. We continue to find new ways to improve the experience for all our customers, implementing new digital solutions and using data and analytics to proactively communicate and assist them better. Over the last year and a half, we nearly doubled the customer base that uses paperless billing solution. While this has a marginal positive impact on cost saving, it's more environmentally friendly and provides greater convenience for our customers.
Our focus on reliability within our distribution system created a significant improvement of 18% over the same quarter last year, as measured by duration of outages, also known as SAIDI. A key contribution to this improvement in reliability was the continued focus on our environmentally conscious vegetation management program. As a risk-based technique, we are able to focus on trimming hazardous trees that may cause power interruptions by coming into contact with the power lines. Not only is the new program more environmentally friendly, it's also better for the communities, more efficient within our operations, and improves the service we provide to our customers. Our focus on improving the experience for customers and communities was recognized by an award from the Canadian Public Relations Society.
This national award of excellence was presented for our community and relationship management in support of critical forestry in the Ottawa area throughout 2017 and 2018. Our expertise in forestry was also recognized by the Edison Electric Institute with an Emergency Assistance Award for our response efforts following the devastating California wildfires in 2018. We deployed 40 forestry staff for one month to inspect electrical systems. Finally, we continue to have a positive relationship with the Government of Ontario as we are aligned on key priorities of meeting and exceeding electricity needs of all Ontarians. I am pleased to report that our commitment to advocate on behalf of our customers led to the Independent Electricity System Operator awarding us with a new 230 kV transmission line from Chatham to Leamington.
Construction should be completed by 2025 and will bring 400 additional MW of power needed to meet the growing demands of the greenhouse industry in Southwest Ontario. This additional load should have the added benefit of lowering electricity rates for all Ontarians. We are proud that our strong cost-effective execution capabilities have been recognized with the award of this new line. With that, I'd like to pass it over to Chris.
Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to take this moment to welcome our new colleagues to the leadership team. We are all excited about the great opportunity that Hydro One offers and look forward to your contributions to a truly unique organization. In terms of our financial results, the fundamentals of the business continue to be strong. However, we did see a decrease in earnings per share in the second quarter to CAD 0.26 compared to the second quarter last year of CAD 0.34. The decline was primarily related to less favorable weather. For the transmission segment, the average peak demand in Ontario declined by 8.6% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, there was a decline of 1.1% in electricity distributed to Hydro One customers on the distribution side.
While the mild and calm weather affected revenues, it also allowed us to seize the opportunity to do more work in the quarter to improve the reliability and de-risk the electricity system for our customers. Revenues were also affected by the accelerated depreciation measures or incentives introduced in the 2019 federal and provincial budgets and enacted during the quarter. The impact from these laws, however, is net income neutral, as there is a corresponding offset to tax expense. Overall, revenues net of purchase power were lower year-over-year by 5.4%. On operating expenditures, we took advantage of the milder weather and lack of storm activity to enhance the reliability of the electricity infrastructure by undertaking more or accelerating work in our vegetation management program. The team covered 7,649 kilometers in vegetation compared to 6,181 last year, which represents an increase of 24% year-over-year.
Although this is an increase in non-OM&A for the quarter, we believe the expenditure is prudent as it allows us to de-risk future quarters so we can remain on track to meet the vegetation management program targets set to transition from a 10-year to 3-year cycle. Our vegetation management work has contributed to better reliability with our distribution business, with a decline in the system average interruption duration index, or SAIDI, of nearly 18% year-over-year. With respect to the storm activity, last year, we capitalized a significant portion of costs due to storm-related expenditure. This year, the milder weather resulted in less storm activity, which meant that restoration events that were not deemed storms were expensed instead of being capitalized. The result was an increase in emergency power restoration costs within operating expenses.
Although we have higher expenses in the quarter, we remain on track with regard to our annual program to take costs out of the system and at a minimum, offset inflation. During the quarter, we were pleased to issue CAD 1.5 billion of long-term debt at historically low rates. While the secured financing was favorable, the interest cost did represent an increase from last year when we had carried an increased commercial paper balance. In addition, this year, we did not have any unrealized gains from forward contracts that were present last year on account of the financing related to the Avista merger. The increased financing costs were partially offset by the savings as a result of the redemption of the convertible debentures in February 2019. Similar to last quarter, we experienced a negative effective tax rate of 3.9% versus 13.4% in the second quarter of the prior year.
The quarterly income tax decreased by CAD 38 million, which results in a tax recovery of CAD 6 million. The decrease in income tax expense was primarily attributable to the accelerated tax depreciation enacted during the quarter, incremental tax deductions from deferred tax asset sharing, as mandated by the OEB, and lower income before taxes in the quarter. As mentioned earlier, the lower taxes pertaining to the accelerated tax depreciation and deferred tax asset sharing are offset by lower revenues, making them net income neutral, with no impact to our regulated return on equity. At this stage, we are not changing our previous guidance of 2% for the effective tax rate in 2019. Over the next five years, we also continue to expect the effective tax rate will be in the range of 8%-11%.
While the decrease in effective tax rate will be net income neutral, it may have an impact on the timing of future cash flows. Moving over to investing activities, the company placed CAD 276 million of assets in service in the second quarter, which is lower compared to last year by approximately CAD 200 million. Last year, a substantial portion of the in-service additions was due to the completion of the Clarington transmission station, which accounted for CAD 197 million of the in-service amount. Moreover, the milder weather, as referenced previously, also meant we had lower storm costs capitalized during the quarter. We are pleased with the productivity being achieved in the overall capital spend and in-servicing of assets. These efficiencies allow us to do more work with the same amount of capital approved by the OEB, which will in turn improve reliability for all customers.
On the regulatory front, our application for transmission rates for the 2020 to 2022 years under the incentive rate-making framework was filed on March 21st. We just finished responding to over 650 interrogatories containing more than 1,500 questions from OEB staff and interveners, which is normal course. We anticipate a hearing in the fall of this year and an expected decision in early 2020. With respect to the deferred tax asset, we have filed an appeal with the Ontario Divisional Court, and a hearing is expected to take place on November 21st. Finally, we continue to work through both the Orillia Power Distribution and Peterborough Distribution merger applications. Technical conferences will be held in October, and we hope for a quick resolution thereafter. I'll stop there, and we'd be pleased to take your questions.
Thank you, Mark and Chris. We'll ask the operator to explain how she'd like to organize the Q&A polling process. Please go ahead, Crystal.
Our first question comes from Linda Ezergailis from TD Securities. Your line is open.
Thank you. I'm wondering if you could help us maybe understand prospectively either the seasonality of some of your OM&A activity and costs or what an appropriate run rate might be for either the second half of this year or some sort of annual run rate going forward. Thanks, Linda. It's Chris. Yeah, I think the seasonality really went. If I looked at last year, for example, we had fairly volatile weather, and that does impact our ability to complete normal coursework. This year, we've had the opposite of that. The weather was closer to normal, and without the volatility, which allowed us to do a lot more of the planned work. We had an increased capacity to do that. When the crews aren't working on unplanned work, we can ramp up the planned side, and that's what we've done.
That's why you've seen an advancement of costs in the first half of this year. Overall, I think through my earlier comments, at a minimum, we will offset the impact of inflation. If you looked at the total OM&A for the year, it should be flat. With the exception of a few one-off changes in structure for Hydro One. The one that's obvious is our change in executive compensation, that will result in a reduction to last year's run rate. You'll see that towards the end of the year. Our back half should more than offset any increase that you've seen in costs in the first half of this year.
Okay, the split between Q3 and Q4?
I don't have that detail in front of me, Linda.
Okay. Maybe I can take that offline. Thank you. This is a question maybe more for Mark. You've been in this seat, I realize, just for a few months now. But you are going through a refiling for the acquisition of Orillia. You're waiting for a decision on Peterborough. What are your thoughts on whether Hydro One might continue to make acquisitions of small Ontario utilities? If you do, what sort of approach might you take that's a bit different prospectively, if at all?
Yeah. You're right, we are going through the regulatory process for the purchase of Orillia and Peterborough. As I look at our strategy and we develop strategy, I think that there is synergies to be made and opportunities for further consolidation of LDCs. We will look at those as we look at our strategy. As you know, that the ones that we have been doing have been taking some time to get through the process, and part of that is around the multiples we're paying for those, as well as is showing that we're holding rate payers harmless. Based on our learnings from Orillia and Peterborough, we will be clear upfront if we do a future acquisition on what that looks like.
Okay, thank you. Maybe if someone can help me understand what the timeline might be in terms of your appeal for the deferred tax asset decision. It's going to be heard in November, but can we think of kind of a normal timeline for how that will unfold after November to ultimately get to a decision?
Yeah. Hi, Linda. It's Chris. I would expect a decision in the first part of 2020.
That's helpful. Thank you. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Kwan from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I'm just wondering, Mark, if you can talk about the engagement you've had or how much time you've been spending on engagement with the government on just trying to help them deliver bill reductions, whether that's work at Hydro specifically, but one of the other things you've talked about was just streamlining the entire electricity system by having companies and the agencies work together to avoid duplication, really just drawing on your prior experience working in an integrated utility.
Yeah. We support the goal of reducing costs in the system obviously. We are working and have been working with our peers, with the regulators, and with the government on looking where there are opportunities on that. I want to remind people that we are 14% of the total system cost in the province of Ontario. When you break that down a little bit further, that's actually of the 25% of the customers that we directly serve through our distribution and transmission system, we represent 38%, and we're only 7% of the bill on the remaining 75% of the customers in this province. I just wanted to make sure we put that in perspective. The government has outlined certain items that they've already publicly announced, which I believe contribute towards their reduction that they're looking for.
Examples of those are moving the conservation program to the ISO, canceling some of the power purchase contracts for contracts where construction hadn't begun. I think that if you look at what has been announced, they're partway down the road. We are working with the others in the sector to look at where there are opportunities across the whole sector, and we're doing that through our reengaging with some of the associations which we haven't been part of for the last while, such as the OEA or the EDA and the Ontario Energy Network. We are working with our partners on that to look for where those opportunities are, and I look forward to doing that going forward.
Okay. Maybe just turning to the acquisitions and thinking more broadly, I guess just thinking about the risk of the OEB looking through to the holding company. What's your thoughts on acquisitions outside of Ontario as well as non-regulated assets? Just trying to see, really trying, how do you get to use your balance sheet, capability on the acquisition front?
Yeah. We're still in the process of developing strategy, but one thing's pretty clear to me is that it'll have a heavy focus on operational excellence and on Ontario. I can say that I don't foresee us doing M&A in the U.S. in the near term. We will be heavily focused on Ontario. I like the way we're allocating our capital to the regulated business in this company, and I believe that there's good growth in that business, primarily through organic growth and investment in the assets. What I've seen so far, looking at our asset management assessments of the health of our assets, which a lot of them were built in the 1950s, is that the system requires a large amount of investment, and that's the case we're making in front of the regulator.
Okay. It sounds like you want to largely stay Ontario, largely stay regulated. Is it fair or what's your willingness to use material double leverage given the risk of a look-through?
Hold on. It's Chris. Again, we'll look at that in a strategy, but I do not see our approach, double leverage or anything like that, being a material part of the strategy. It will be primarily the regulated business here in Ontario, ways to expand that footprint into other areas that are complementary. We'll definitely look at that. We'll look at if there is any debt capacity at the holding co level, anything that we can use that for. Potentially there's some opportunities there, but nothing substantial that I can see, Robert.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Jarvi from CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe just following up on some of the last comments about other types. Primary focus is Ontario, but what's your sort of interest or thought process right now about looking at other transmission projects outside of Ontario, taking some of your expertise and looking at that. Do you want to think about that on a standalone basis, or if you did engage on something like that, if it'd be through partnerships?
Yeah. As I said, we're developing strategy right now, and we're looking at where are all our opportunities for growth. You're right in that we have a lot of expertise around execution of transmission and distribution-type projects. As we look at our strategy overall and where there are opportunities, that's something that we'll need to consider.
Are you ready to sort of engage on anything now, or do you still want to refine your strategy before you sort of get people moving towards those types of initiatives?
Yeah, we'll be assessing if there are those types of opportunities now, and as we refine our strategy, we'll decide on whether we'll pursue anything like that. We are pursuing the ones which we know about in the province. I talked about the Leamington line recently or earlier, and so we will be constructing that line, and we're working on the planning of some other lines in North to open up the Ring of Fire.
Okay. Maybe this question is for Chris, but just on the accelerated depreciation, any increased or any additional commentary or discussions with the rating agencies or views around for the treatment from the OEB on the cash flow impact and how you guys see managing that going forward?
We haven't had those discussions yet. It's premature. I think they will be discussed in the upcoming transition application. I think the clarity on that will come early in 2020. That would certainly be the case for TX. On the DX side, it's likely that that clarity does not come until the next resetting in 2023.
Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Hope from Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Morning, everyone. With September almost upon us and bond yields continuing to grind lower, just want to get your sense on the formulaic Ontario ROE and how that could be set, and whether or not that truly reflects the cost of capital.
Hi, Chris here. We do calculate that number. It does fluctuate a lot daily at the moment, given the headlines out of the U.S. and China, mainly driven by trade. It's probably too soon to speculate. Late last year, it was up at the 9. Earlier this year, it dropped. It's probably at its lowest point right now. Absolutely. Too soon to call that. As you know, the number will be set then at the end of September this year. At the next quarterly call, we'll certainly have a view on what that is. Reminding everybody that that does affect the TX application. It does not affect DX, which has already been set and is locked away until 2023.
All right. Maybe just as a follow-up, though, because you did mention that it is volatile right now and not necessarily accurately reflecting a cost of equity, would you have an appetite to potentially look to go at an altered ROE at some point?
No, we're not entertaining that at this point.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Pham from BMO. Your line is open.
Okay. Thanks. Good morning. I guess, the benefit of a lower interest rate, potential lower ROE is really your cost of debt. What are your thoughts around your financing needs on the debt balance for this year into next year, looking at maybe some pre-funding activity?
Yeah. We did the CAD 1.5 billion early this year, so our financing requirements for this year are done. We could take a little more in the back half if we wanted to. That's optionality. More than likely it will be next year, but you're quite right. The offset in this is if you're in a declining rate environment, your cost of debt as you renew, that benefit stays with the equity holder. In a rising rate environment, you get the benefit of a higher ROE, but you also have the risk of interest rates increasing, and the equity holder wears that. When you look over the rate period, and we're not talking 100 basis points or anything in that range, we're talking in the tens of basis points, not in the hundreds.
Yes, we can absolutely offset it through lower cost of financing over the rate period.
Okay. I want to follow up some of the other questions and answers on the strategy. It could just simply be how you want reiterating what the previous strategy that's been talked about. Could you update us maybe on the timing of these disclosures? Is it a formal document that you're planning to review, or is this going to be more of a quarterly call where you're going through some of the salient points of the new or current strategy?
We're in the development stages, obviously, of the strategy still, and part of that needs to be how do we want to convey this to the market and to shareholders and to stakeholders. We haven't made that determination yet. I do foresee giving good information to shareholders and to stakeholders on what that strategy is going to look like and why we're pursuing it. We haven't turned our head to exactly what that'll look like yet.
Do you foresee something before the end of this year, Mark? Is this maybe more as you think about the 2020 as a full year basis?
Yeah, no, I foresee sharing our strategy more broadly by this fall.
Okay. Maybe just a last touch up, this deferred tax asset, and this appeal. It's really more of a cash flow implication than an EPS impact, right? Because of the variance accounts?
I just want to be clear, are you talking about deferred tax asset?
Yeah. The one that you've been denied a portion of that, and you're
Yes
You're appealing it. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. What it will be is if we are successful, there'll be a one-time gain of CAD 885 million, and then it becomes a cash flow benefit going forward. There will be a one-time EPS benefit, like there was a one-time EPS write-off in Q4 of last year.
Okay. There's not a recurring operating EPS impact.
No, there is a recurring FFO benefit of CAD 50 million-CAD 60 million per year.
Okay. All right. Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and then one now. Our next question comes from Andrew Kuske from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. Chris, I think you mentioned there was a 24% increase in, I guess it was the area that was covered by the vegetation management program. Could you just give a bit of color on what effectively you brought forward into the quarter from a cost basis? The follow-up question to that is effectively, as you start to see outages decline and reliability increase because of the vegetation management, does that start to shift your capital program to a more proactive one versus being reactive to instances that get caused by outages?
I think your answer to the second question is yes. As reliability improves and there are less impacts from trees, our ability to switch to more of a planned approach versus a reactive approach improves. That's absolutely true. In terms of the quantum of what's been brought into the quarter, I think if you adjust for Avista costs year to date, we're about CAD 20 million higher than the previous year, and that roughly equates to the increase in our vegetation management costs mostly in Q2, but in the first half of this year.
If I may, just to follow up on that theme, how do you think about the more productive proactive capital? When does that start to get put into place, and what benefits do you anticipate coming from that?
Yeah, I think that'll be over time. It won't be in a particular quarter. I think you'll see that come out. What we said before is that we don't pick up a lot of cost savings overall in the first cycle, which is the first three years of the program, but we will start to see the benefits. As they occur, we'll switch. I think you'll see it materializing over the next three years, but the big switch to that planning, more proactive approach and reassigning those savings to other areas will happen at the end of the first cycle.
Okay, that's helpful, then. Maybe slightly different but similar theme, just on the advanced metering infrastructure wireless project. What benefits are you really seeing from that at this point in time?
The advanced metering infrastructure, I guess overall, I think there's three things that really impact our reliability improvements. One is the VCP that we just heard about. The second is our storm response and our change to our planning and preparation for storms. The third is the hardening of the system and the investments in technology on the system. One of the things being leveraging our AMI and putting sensors on the system so that we can isolate where there are outages and get better foresight on where there's outages. I would say it's having an impact. Those three things are really what's impacting our improvement in reliability.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our last question comes from Patrick Kenny from National Bank Financial. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the update on the customer satisfaction levels as well as the new sustainability report. Still looks to be quite a bit of room, though, for improvement on the employee satisfaction front. I didn't see any voluntary turnover data or internal targets in the report. Maybe you could just provide an update on where things are at today, what sort of targets you're looking to achieve over the coming years with respect to employee satisfaction.
Yeah, I'm not sure I can answer the details, Mark, here, the details about the targets and where we're at right now. I don't have those numbers in front of me. One of the things that I'm focused on is ensuring that we have an engaged workforce. I believe to do that, you need to ensure that you're listening to people and that you're reaching out to people for the solutions. A big area that I believe that we're going to focus on around that is in the safety front and engaging our employees in improving our safety results as a company. I don't have those numbers in front of me. Omar can get those after, what our current attrition rates are and things like that. I know relative to most industries, we're below average as far as attrition goes.
I think we're probably in alignment with other utilities, but I can't confirm that. Omar will have to do that.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Yeah. As a general follow-up there, what I will say is that I'm not sure if, Patrick, if you're drawing the link between events the last 12 months, they really have had no impact on staff turnover at Hydro One. In fact, we've won an employer award in that time. It's not reflective of any concern around staff or turnover. I would expect the attrition rates to play that out for you that Omar will provide, but I think that's very clear.
Much appreciated, Chris Lopez.
Thank you. That does conclude our question and answer session for today's call. I'd like to turn the call back over to Omar Javed for any further remarks.
Thanks, Crystal. The management team at Hydro One thanks everyone for their time with us this morning during what is definitely a busy day. We appreciate your interest, your ownership, and if you have any further questions that weren't addressed on the call, please feel free to reach out and we'll get them answered for you. Thank you again, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.