Conduent Incorporated

Greetings and welcome to the Conduit third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Giles Goodburn, Vice President of Investor Relations for Conduit. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. And thanks everyone for joining us today to discuss Conduance third quarter 2024 earnings. I'm joined today by Cliff Skelton, our president and CEO, and Steve Wood, our CFO. We hope you had a chance to review our press release issued earlier this morning. This call is being webcast and a copy of the slides used during this call, as well as the press release, were filed with the SEC this morning on Form 8-K. This information, as well as the detailed financial metrics package, are available on the investor relations section of the Conduent website. During this call, we may make statements that are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations, and are subject to a number of factors that may cause actual results to materially differ from those statements. Information concerning these factors is included in Conduit's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. We do not intend to update these forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments, except as required by law. The information presented today includes non-GAAP financial measures. Because these measures are not calculated in accordance with the U.S. GAAP, they should be viewed in addition to and not as a substitute for the company's reported results. For more information regarding definitions of our non-GAAP financial measures and how we use them, as well as the limitations to their usefulness for comparative purposes, please see our press release. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Cliff.

Thanks, Giles. Welcome, everyone, to our Q3 earnings. As we did last quarter, Steve will begin with the financials, and I'll follow with a status report on what's changed in the last quarter and a brief discussion on what continues to make Conduent's balance sheet, solution set, and growth expectations unique. But first, the quarter. Q3 adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA worth $781 million and $32 million, respectively, at a 4.1% margin, meeting or slightly exceeding our expectations. This is fully adjusted now for all completed divestitures And these results continue to validate our previously described game plan for our growth trajectory. New business signings were $111 million with a strong performance in commercial sales, offset with some continued softness in government and parts of our transportation business, where there was less deal activity in the quarter. As you know, there can be lumpiness in sales performance by quarter, but overall we are on track for a 2024 sales year that meets our expectations. As expected, our net ARR number returned to positive territory. Steve will go deep on all these numbers here in a moment, but here are a couple of key points. We completed the initial phase of the divestiture program we communicated 18 months ago, and we've deployed 75% of the $1 billion targeted against debt prepayment and share repurchases. We've been consistent in our messaging for the last 18 months. We're on a continued path to those 2025 exit rate parameters of lower debt and debt ratios, sequential margin improvement, less capital intensity, and top line growth. We will stay on course both strategically and tactically toward a narrower, more nimble growing company with a clean balance sheet. Finally, with a more simplified board structure, we can now turn our attention on what's next. But first, let me hand it over to Steve to talk about the detailed results for Q3. Steve?