Company: AWK
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001410636-25-000022
Chunk: 1

Company: American Water Works Company, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 7A
Chunk 1
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 well as developments specifically related to the water and wastewater industry. These could include, among other things, interest rate movements, quarterly variations or changes in financial estimates by securities analysts and governmental or regulatory actions. This volatility may make it difficult for the Company to access the capital markets in the future through additional offerings of its common stock or other equity securities, regardless of its financial performance, and such difficulty may preclude the Company from being able to take advantage of certain business opportunities or meet business obligations.

The Company is exposed to credit risk through its water, wastewater and related services. The Company’s Regulated Businesses serve residential, commercial, industrial and other customers, while the businesses within Other engage in business activities with government entities and other customers. The Company’s primary credit risk is exposure to customer default on contractual obligations and the associated loss that may be incurred due to the non-payment of customer accounts receivable balances. The Company’s credit risk is managed through established credit and collection policies which are in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and involve monitoring of customer exposure and the use of credit risk mitigation measures such as letters of credit or prepayment arrangements. The Company’s credit portfolio is diversified with no significant customer or industry concentrations. In addition, the Regulated Businesses are generally able to recover all prudently incurred costs including uncollectible customer accounts receivable expenses and collection costs through rates.

The Company’s retirement trust assets are exposed to the market prices of debt and equity securities. Changes to the retirement trust asset values can impact the Company’s pension and other benefits expense, funded status and future minimum funding requirements. Changes in interest rates can impact retirement liabilities. The Company aims to reduce risk through asset diversification and by investing in long duration fixed-income securities that have a duration similar to that of its pension liabilities, seeking to hedge some of the interest rate sensitivity of its liabilities. That way, if interest rates fall and liabilities increase, the Company expects that the fixed-income assets in its retirement trust will also increase in value. The Company also expects its risk to be reduced through its ability to recover pension and other benefit costs through rates.

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The Company is also exposed to a potential national economic recession or deterioration in local economic conditions in the markets in which it operates. The credit quality of the Company’s customer accounts receivable is dependent on the economy and the ability of its customers to manage through unfavorable economic cycles and other market changes. In addition, there can be no assurances that regulators will grant sufficient rate authorizations. Therefore, the Company’s ability to fully