Empire District Electric Co (Empire District Electric Co) Equity Investments

Empire District Electric Co is a Kansas corporation organized in 1909. The Company is an operating public utility engaged in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity in parts of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The Company operates its businesses as three segments; Electric, Gas and Other. The Company also provides water service to three towns in Missouri. The Company, along with its subsidiary The Empire District Gas Company, is engaged in the distribution of natural gas in Missouri. The Other segment consists of fiber optics business. As of December 31, 2013 the Company's electric operations serve approximately 168,800 customers and gas operations serve approximately 44,000 customers. The territory served by electric operations embraces an area of about 10,000 square miles, located principally in southwestern Missouri, and also includes smaller areas in southeastern Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas. The Company supplies electric service at retail to 119 incorporated communities as of December 31, 2013, and to various unincorporated areas and at wholesale to four municipally owned distribution systems. The Company operates under franchises having original terms of twenty years or longer in the incorporated communities. The three largest classes of on-system customers are residential, commercial and industrial. The largest single on-system wholesale customer is the city of Monett, Missouri. The Company currently supplements its on-system generating capacity with purchases of capacity and energy from other sources in order to meet the demands of its customers and the capacity margins applicable under current pooling agreements and National Electric Reliability Council rules. The generating facilities consist of three coal-fired generating plants, two natural gas generating plants and one hydroelectric generating plant. The Company's gas operations serve customers in northwest, north central and west central Missouri. As of December 31, 2013, gas operations served approximately 44,000 customers. The Company provides natural gas distribution to 48 communities and 377 transportation customers as of December 31, 2013. At December 31, 2013 the principal gas utility properties of the Company consisted of approximately 87 miles of transmission mains and approximately 1,160 miles of distribution mains. The three pipelines that serve the Company's gas customers are Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline, Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company and ANR Pipeline Company. The Company is subject to the jurisdiction of the Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC), the State Corporation Commission of the State of Kansas (KCC), the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma (OCC) and the Arkansas Public Service Commission (APSC) with respect to services and facilities, rates and charges, regulatory accounting, valuation of property, depreciation and various other matters.