Evergy Missouri West Inc.

Our stable outlook on EMW reflects our outlook on its parent, Evergy Inc. This incorporates our base-case scenario that Evergy's regulated utility operations will continue to generate sufficient cash flow to maintain financial measures that support adjusted funds from operations (FFO) to debt of 16%-17% from 2019 through 2021. This range places the company just below the midpoint of our significant financial risk profile assessment. The outlook also reflects our expectation of a strengthened business risk profile and a clear path to realizing proposed synergies that result in operational improvements and cost savings. Further enhancing the business risk profile will be the almost full ownership of the Wolf Creek nuclear plant, strengthening control and leading to additional operating efficiencies. We

...We believe the stability of Evergy Missouri West Inc.'s (EMW's) service territory offsets its size limitations. With about 320,000 retail electric customers in western Missouri, EMW's smaller size and limited diversification add risk to its credit profile. However, we believe the company's generally stable service territory, which consists of predominantly residential and commercial customers, offsets some of this risk. We expect EMW's financial measures to remain strong through 2022. We expect EMW's financial measures to be at the upper end of its financial risk profile category, providing the company with cushion against unexpected cost increases or incremental debt issuances to fund capital spending....

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