2024 Shareholder Address

2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholder
Remarks from Brian X. Tierney, FirstEnergy President and CEO
May 22, 2024

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and for your investment and confidence in FirstEnergy.

Thank you, as well, to the Board and to my fellow employees. Your steadfast dedication to our customers and tremendous performance has helped transform FirstEnergy. Today, we are a stronger, more resilient and innovative company with a foundation of integrity and a very bright future.

Together, we are building a great story that I am excited to share with you today. As you probably know, I was elected to this role last spring, and my first day on the job was June 1^st, 2023.

I have a passion for the utility industry, where I’ve spent most of my career.

FirstEnergy appealed to me because of its progress, from a business and cultural perspective, and its strengths and opportunities. These include:

• An engaged and dedicated employee base.
• A fantastic business model, substantially derisked by being focused on wires.
• A constructive regulatory environment focused on customer affordability and reliability.
• And an opportunity to become one of the nation’s premier electric companies.

It’s been a fantastic first year getting to know the people of FirstEnergy and being a part of this transformation. And above all, it’s an honor to be part of this team providing a service that is the lifeblood of modern living to our communities.

The employees of FirstEnergy don't just view their work as a job, it’s a vocation that they take very seriously.

They recognize that the essential service of electricity powers our daily lives.

Without electricity, people can’t come together in a connected workplace. They can’t care for their children and elderly, feed their families or keep themselves safe.

This vocation, and the service we deliver, are more important than ever. Electricity demand is growing through the electrification of sectors like transportation and home heating, as well as through large users like data centers.

We share a mission: To safely and efficiently deliver electricity that strengthens our society and powers our economy.

We also share a purpose: To help FirstEnergy become a premier electric company. I believe we can achieve this by keeping our mission foremost in front of us.

To realize this goal, the Board and executive management team are aligned behind a business model that has four components: investing, operating, recovering costs and financing our regulated utility operations. This business model creates a virtuous cycle that will help improve reliability, grow rate base, engage employees, improve returns and maintain a strong balance sheet.

The model begins with investing. We invest in our infrastructure – the wires, transformers and substations – to enhance reliability to improve the customer experience.

As a result of the excellent work we’ve done to strengthen our balance sheet, we’re in a strong position – for the first time in the company’s history – to grow and invest in the opportunities across our businesses.

In February, we introduced Energize365, a five-year, $26 billion investment program. Energize365 is focused almost entirely on enhancing our wires businesses. About 75% of those investments are in rate structures that allow for rapid cost recovery. The program targets investments that improve the customer experience, maintain our strong affordability position, and provide a fair and reasonable regulated return for our investors. It solidly supports our 6-to-8% targeted annual operating earnings growth rate.

About 45% of the capital program is in FERC-regulated transmission investments. This includes enhancing and upgrading the transmission system and adding operational flexibility. It also supports projects like offshore wind in New Jersey and new data center load. 

On the distribution system, it includes customer-focused investments like reliability enhancements, grid modernization, smart meter deployment, distribution automation and energy efficiency programs.

We’re also investing in our people, to have skilled, talented, diverse and engaged employees who can carry out our mission.

All of the outstanding new leaders we’ve welcomed to the team in the past year are using their extensive experience to add value to our company.  

Along with the rest of the leadership team, they are committed to modeling our core values and behaviors to bring out the best in our employees and deliver the best for our customers, communities and investors.

Employees are the foundation of our company and their engagement and energy fuel our success.  

We’re pleased that company pride has increased across the organization, according to our latest Employee Engagement Survey.

We’ll continue to build on our strengths by helping employees feel valued, instilling a sense of belonging in our workforce, and continuing to seek and respect employee opinions and contributions – as these are all drivers of engagement.

A prime example of this successful engagement is the dedicated team of employees from our operating companies, bargaining units, Workforce Development and Human Resources who are developing FirstEnergy’s new paid apprenticeship program for line and substation workers.

Through their engagement, coupled with leadership support, we are creating a fresh, forward-thinking training program completely suited to our specific workforce needs.

The next component of the cycle is operating. Running our business effectively and efficiently means prudently incurring expenses, serving our customers and seeking opportunities to enhance the way we work.

To support our mission of delivering a service that is the lifeblood of our communities, we must operate in a way that understands, respects and responds to the needs of those communities.

One way we’re doing this is by shifting more of our operational decision-making and accountability closer to our customers, our regulators and the employees doing the work.

We’ve implemented a new operating structure that includes five major businesses: Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia/Maryland and our standalone Transmission properties.

Each business is accountable for regulatory strategy and outcomes as well as operational and financial performance. This structure will foster better execution at the local level, where it will make a difference for our customers.

Operating effectively also means coming together when things are tough. When you look at 2023, the company was buffeted by a number of financial headwinds, including the significant effect of unseasonably mild weather.

Our 12,000 employees aligned behind the things we could control: managing costs, deploying capital to enhance the customer experience and above all – seeking opportunities for continuous improvement in our cost structure and the way we work. Through these efforts, we not only overcame the headwinds, we increased our customer-focused investments, exceeded our guidance midpoint and entered 2024 in a position of strength.

We will continue to challenge ourselves and reward innovation because keeping continuous improvement at the heart of our culture is foundational to operating successfully and being a premier utility company.

This brings us to the third stage of our cycle: recovery. Understanding the needs of our customers and delivering superior service builds supportive relationships with our customers, regulators and local officials. This, together with positive engagement with all stakeholders, helps drive constructive rate outcomes that support recovery of our investments.

We achieved several important regulatory milestones over the past year, including necessary increases in revenues through three base rate cases. These reasonable and constructive outcomes will fuel our investments in reliable and affordable service.

This spring, we filed a rate case for our Pennsylvania operations, and we’ll file our Ohio rate case this month. Consistent with last year’s filings, these address investments that benefit our customers through reliability enhancements and a smarter and cleaner electric grid while maintaining our strong affordability position.

The fourth phase in our business cycle is finance. When we execute well in the first three components of the cycle – investing, operating and recovering – our company becomes a compelling investment. This allows us to finance the business at a lower cost of capital and restart this virtuous business cycle all over again at “invest.”

We’ve completed important work over the last several years to strengthen our financial position so we can invest in our businesses.

We’ve reduced costs through continuous improvement programs, reduced the risks associated with our pension plan and optimized our financing plan to retain flexibility in a high interest rate environment.

Most importantly, we entered into a series of strategic transactions, starting in 2021, that raised a total of $7 billion in equity capital at a stock equivalent price of $87 per share. In other words, investors recognized the value in our business.

Most recently, in March we closed on a transaction to sell 30% of our FirstEnergy Transmission, LLC, subsidiary, raising $3.5 billion. This transaction was possible thanks to the FirstEnergy employees whose hard work made FET a premier transmission business, and the teams that had the vision and tenacity to get the deal done.

Because of this transaction, in the three months ended March 31^st, the total equity on our balance sheet increased 25%. That is truly remarkable for a company of our size. Recognizing the significant impact to the company, both Moody’s and S&P upgraded FirstEnergy Corp.’s senior unsecured rating to investment grade.

For the first time in the company’s history, we have a strong balance sheet that enables organic investment in our regulated properties to improve reliability and the customer experience.

Our stronger financial foundation supports our plan to fund our Energize365 investments through organic internal cash flow and utility debt – not incremental equity. This represents an important differentiation from many of our utility peers.

This healthier financial position also enabled us to enhance our dividend payout to investors.

In September of last year our Board approved an increase in our quarterly dividend for the first time in more than three years – and in April we announced a second increase. Subject to continued Board approval, these increases represent an annual rate of $1.70 per share in 2024 – a 6.25% increase compared to dividends declared in 2023.

We recognize the importance of a strong dividend for our investors and it’s our goal to increase our dividend in line with operating earnings growth over time.

Our goal is to continue impacting each phase of the cycle in a positive way to build on our momentum and benefit all of our stakeholders: Serve our customers and communities, grow our business and provide rewarding careers for our great employees, make our regulators happy, and deliver strong results and returns to our shareholders.

Together with our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity, performance excellence and continuous improvement, we are confident that strong execution of the virtuous business cycle model will help us achieve our strategic objectives and deliver value.

Finally, at the heart of our business model and woven through each step of our virtuous cycle is our commitment to responsible business, grounded in strong governance. We’re committed to supporting our customers and employees and demonstrating strong stewardship of the environment and our communities.

Every day, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to be part of a team of employees who recognize our core values and embody them in everything we do. From how we work with each other, to our interactions with customers and our outreach within the communities where we live and work, FirstEnergy employees go above and beyond to help make our customers' lives brighter and our communities stronger.  

The recent United Way Employee Giving campaign exemplified our core value of stewardship. In an impressive bottom-of-the-ninth rally, FirstEnergy employees helped the company exceed our $1 million goal. Meeting this goal is a testament to the commitment, compassion and ownership they feel as vital members of our communities to make a positive impact on those around them. This is further demonstrated by the nearly 28,000 hours employees spent volunteering in 2023.

2023 was also a strong year for charitable giving, as FirstEnergy and the FirstEnergy Foundation contributed more than $10 million to help strengthen communities throughout our service territory.

The Foundation allocated nearly $2 million to over 300 organizations supporting programming for veterans, women and girls, people with disabilities and minority communities. Investment in diverse organizations has grown from approximately 10% in 2018 to over 30% in five years, including funding provided through the successful Investing with Purpose initiative.

Our company and employees are committed to achieving our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 – and we’re taking key steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our operational control.

In 2023, we partnered with the Electric Power Research Institute on a first-of-its-kind pilot, testing a new mitigation measure for reducing sulfur hexafluoride leaks from utility infrastructure. This innovative tactic can help FirstEnergy – and potentially our peer utilities – reduce these emissions in the field going forward.

Our commitment to sustainability extends beyond our operational activities; it's deeply ingrained in our corporate culture. Since its inception in 2020, our employee-led Green Teams have planted more than 67,000 trees, focusing on economically depressed neighborhoods within our company’s footprint.

Responsible business is good business that helps us refine and execute our strategies, and it’s a hallmark of excellent companies.

We have a strong foundation, clear focus and robust strategy to deliver long-term value to our shareholders, customers, communities and employees.

We’re excited about our future. Thank you for being a part of it.  

Forward-Looking Statements: This presentation includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms “anticipate,” “potential,” “expect,” "forecast," "target," "will," "intend," “believe,” "project," “estimate," "plan" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may include the following: the potential liabilities, increased costs and unanticipated developments resulting from government investigations and agreements, including those associated with compliance with or failure to comply with the Deferred Prosecution Agreement entered into July 21, 2021 with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio; the risks and uncertainties associated with government investigations and audits regarding Ohio House Bill 6, as passed by Ohio’s 133rd General Assembly (“HB 6”) and related matters, including potential adverse impacts on federal or state regulatory matters, including, but not limited to, matters relating to rates; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation, and similar proceedings, particularly regarding HB 6 related matters, including risks associated with obtaining dismissal of the derivative shareholder lawsuits; changes in national and regional economic conditions, including recession, volatile interest rates, inflationary pressure, supply chain disruptions, higher fuel costs, and workforce impacts, affecting us and/or our customers and those vendors with which we do business; variations in weather, such as mild seasonal weather variations and severe weather conditions (including events caused, or exacerbated by climate changes, such as wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, droughts, high wind events and extreme heat events) and other natural disasters affecting future operating results and associated regulatory actions or outcomes in response to such conditions; legislative and regulatory developments, including, but not limited to, matters related to rates, compliance and enforcement activity, cyber security, and climate change; the risks associated with physical attacks, such as acts of war, terrorism, sabotage or other acts of violence, and cyber-attacks and other disruptions to our, or our vendors’, information technology system, which may compromise our operations, and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property and proprietary or personally identifiable information; the ability to meet our goals relating to employee, environmental, social and corporate governance opportunities, improvements, and efficiencies, including our greenhouse gas (“GHG”) reduction goals; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits through establishing a culture of continuous improvement and our other strategic and financial goals, including, but not limited to, overcoming current uncertainties and challenges associated with the ongoing government investigations, executing Energize365, our transmission and distribution investment plan, executing on our rate filing strategy, controlling costs, improving credit metrics, maintaining investment grade ratings, and growing earnings, changing market conditions affecting the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of assets held in our pension trusts may negatively impact our forecasted growth rate, results of operations, and may also cause us to make contributions to our pension sooner or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated; mitigating exposure for remedial activities associated with retired and formerly owned electric generation assets; changes to environmental laws and regulations, including but not limited to those related to climate change; changes in customers’ demand for power, including but not limited to, economic conditions, the impact of climate change, emerging technology, particularly with respect to electrification, energy storage and distributed sources of generation;  the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us, including the increasing number of financial institutions evaluating the impact of climate change on their investment decisions; future actions taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect either our access to or terms of financing or our financial condition and liquidity; changes in assumptions regarding factors such as economic conditions within our territories, the reliability of our transmission and distribution system, or the availability of capital or other resources supporting identified transmission and distribution investment opportunities; the potential of non-compliance with debt covenants in our credit facilities; the ability to comply with applicable reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; human capital management challenges, including among other things, attracting and retaining appropriately trained and qualified employees and labor disruptions by our unionized workforce; changes to significant accounting policies; any changes in tax laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, or adverse tax audit results or rulings; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings. Dividends declared from time to time on FirstEnergy Corp.’s common stock during any period may in the aggregate vary from prior periods due to circumstances considered by FirstEnergy Corp.’s Board of Directors at the time of the actual declarations. A security rating is not a recommendation to buy or hold securities and is subject to revision or withdrawal at any time by the assigning rating agency. Each rating should be evaluated independently of any other rating.  These forward-looking statements are also qualified by, and should be read together with, the risk factors included in FirstEnergy Corp.’s (a) Item 1A. Risk Factors, (b) Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, and (c) other factors discussed herein and in FirstEnergy's other filings with the SEC. The foregoing review of factors also should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy Corp.’s business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy Corp. expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein or in the information incorporated by reference as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.