Edison International Earnings Call Nuggets: Next 3 Years of CapEx and the Repair Deduction

Edison International (NYSE:EIX) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Next 3 Years of CapEx

Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: Listen I’m sure there would be lots of SONGS questions to come, so Ted I was wondered if you could just maybe share some thoughts as you think about kind of the next three years of CapEx for the next GRC cycle, without maybe giving us exact numbers, what you see your kind of the major bucket of opportunity or need for investment as you guys kind of look over the planning (preppers)?

Theodore F. Craver Jr. – Chairman, President and CEO: I think the primary one is the distribution system. There is a slide, I forget the page that shows that over the next three years, really over 60%, so coming close to 5/8th of the capital expenditures, are really in the distribution area. We continue to believe there are substantial opportunities on that side. In fact, historically we’ve put into our rate cases for more in the way of a systematic infrastructure replacement that usually becomes some discussion, particularly with some of the consumer groups and consumer interveners, gets knocked back. So we tend to think there’s a lot more that needs to be done on that side. There’s continuing need for electric grid reliability and strengthening. I think we’ll only see kind of more of that as there’s discussion about trying to improve reliability overall across the nation. So I think it’s really the wires piece and particularly in the small wires pieces that we see the greatest opportunities. There will be stuff around the fringes. We pretty much signaled here, we’re not looking to do a huge amount in the generation side. There would clearly be more left for the competitive marketplace, but here and there, there will be some kind of special circumstances like we had in the past that will contribute a little bit.

Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: And I guess maybe turning to dividend policy, obviously with the increase in the fourth quarter, can you just explain to how you think about rating into that 45% to 55% payout ratio going forward and once we get passed on (Indiscernible). Is there a potential to change the dividend before fourth quarter, is that going to be the standard timeline you guys are going to look for?