The three hundredth lock — and rain decides it.

We lock a binary: Meridian Energy's reported EBITDAF for fiscal 2027 is NZ$950m or higher. Confidence 89%.

Guidance is NZ$1,040-1,120m. Our threshold sits NZ$90m, about 8.7%, below the floor of that range — the widest buffer in this tranche, and the lowest confidence except one.

Meridian's last two years are the most instructive pair of numbers in this series. FY2025 EBITDAF was NZ$611m, hit by severe drought. FY2026 was NZ$1,051m, up 72%, on catchment inflows at 122% of historical average. Nothing structural changed — no acquisition, no new market, no strategic pivot. It rained.

That makes Meridian a useful three-hundredth entry, because it is the clearest illustration of the discipline the whole series runs on. The guidance range of NZ$1,040-1,120m is explicitly conditioned on normal hydrology, which is management saying, in effect, here is what we will earn if the weather behaves. A forecaster who anchors tightly to that range is not forecasting Meridian; they are forecasting New Zealand rainfall and pretending otherwise.

So the buffer here is 8.7% rather than the 2-4% used where a guide rests on contracted revenue, and the confidence is 0.89 rather than 0.92. Compare P-244 on Contact Energy, which carries the same hydro exposure and the same treatment. Sizing the buffer to what actually moves the line is the point; a uniform haircut across a tranche would have been indefensible here.

What supports the lock is that NZ$950m sits well below the range and above the drought year — it asks that FY2027 not be another 2025. The residual 11% is precisely that: a repeat drought, or the wind resource underperforming alongside it.