Casella Waste Systems, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Casella Waste Systems Inc. Q4 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jason Meade. You may begin.

Good morning. Today we'll be discussing our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results, which were released yesterday afternoon. This morning I'm joined by John Casella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ned Coletta, our President, Brad Helgeson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Steeves. Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Solid Waste Operations. After a review of these results and an update on the company's activities and business environment, we will be happy to take your questions. But first, please be aware that various remarks we make about the company's future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the risk factors section of our most recently filed Form 10-Q on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views in any subsequent date. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so even if our views change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date to today, February 13, 2025. Also during this call, we'll be referring to non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures are the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the extent they are available without unreasonable effort, and they are included in our press release filed on Form 8K with the SEC. And with that, I'll now turn it over to John Casella to begin today's discussion.

Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2024 conference call. This is another great year for the company. We really performed well against our key strategies, maintain focus on our core competencies and continue to grow the business in a meaningful manner. Very proud of all that we've accomplished this year and I truly appreciate the efforts around the organization that have supported our execution and growth thus far. We have tremendous opportunities again in 2025 to drive value and I'm very much looking forward to the year ahead. We closed eight acquisitions in 2024 with over $200 million in annualized revenues. And we are off to a fast start in 2025 with three acquisitions closing to date with approximately $40 million in annualized revenues. Consistent with the last few years, we are working on several deals and we're poised to put our balance sheet to work. It's amazing to consider our growth over the last two years. We've acquired over $500 million in revenues and put over a billion of capital to work. However, I find it equally remarkable that we are now a company of more than 5,000 employees with operations in 10 states and have welcomed hundreds of thousands of new customers to Casella over the last couple of years. In particular, our new markets enable us to further build our brand through great service, community engagement, to invest into support new business opportunities. to bolt on with acquisitions that have the right strategic fit. Terrific opportunity across the entire footprint with many, many opportunities from a tuck-in standpoint. In further highlighting 2024, we grew revenues adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow by all over 20%. That marks three years in a row of adjusted EBITDA growth of over 20%. We also maintain a low leverage profile Clearly, this speaks to our discipline growth strategy, focus on integration, and the strength of our pricing and operating programs. Our landfills provide us with an excellent in-market position. Although C&D and special volumes were down in 2024 due to various external dynamics, we're optimistic that we will experience modest volume growth in 2025 as these pressures ease. Further, our McKean rail landfill is online and provides us with long-term opportunity to meet the disposal needs of our customers, as well as potentially partner with third parties that are seeking capacity. As we've grown the business, we have also increased our ability to internalize tonnages. This has been a focus in 2024 and will continue to be so in 2025. Shifting to our collection business. has another strong year across our collection operations with year over year adjusted a bit of margin expansion in the base business of over 100 basis points. Sean and his team continue to look for those opportunities from a synergy standpoint, from a technology perspective in terms of driving our operating costs down. This accomplishment is a reflection of our continued investment in automation, further rollout of in-cab technology and routing programs as well as our flexible pricing. Most of our acquisition growth over the last several years has been in the collection line of business. In fact, now over 60% of our consolidated revenues are in collection. As expected, the acquired businesses usually have initial margins at lower levels as compared to our typical collection business, which presents the ability to improve operations over time as we integrate and take the business to our operating standards. Sean and team are focused on driving further value here in 2025. In resource solutions, we had one of the best years in history across our recycling processing operations and national accounts business. We invested in and upgraded our Boston recycling facility in 23. The operation performed very, very well in 2024. In fact, better than expected and was a contributor to our success in the year. In early 2025, wrapped up a similar upgrade in Willimantic, Connecticut. The operation was offline for part of 2024, but it is now up and running. As planned, it will take a few weeks to calibrate the new system, but we're excited to have that project complete. In our national accounts business, we grew volumes by over 4% in 2024. Our sales organization won new municipal, commercial, industrial, and institutional accounts, while also growing our service with existing accounts. Given the expertise of our team, our expanding operating footprint, and our sales pipeline, we are positioned well to continue to grow this resource management offering. This marks the 50th year of the company, and as I reflect on where we started from the simple beginnings that Doug started with that one truck and the construction of our first recycling facility in 1977, I feel absolutely blessed to have been a part of this and so incredibly proud of what we have been able to achieve collectively. We are the product of hard work and perseverance of so many people over the years. As we look ahead, this is the best team that I've worked with. It's exceptional. We have a lot of momentum going into 2025, and I look forward to our continued execution and growth. And now I'll pass it on to Brad to go through some of the financial details.