Casella Waste Systems, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Casella Waste System Inc. 4th Quarter 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message, finding your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Brian Butler, Vice President of Investment Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Marvin. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the call. Today, we'll be discussing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results, which were released yesterday afternoon. This morning, I'm joined with Ned Coletta, President and Chief Executive Officer of Casella Ways Systems, Brad Helgeson, our Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Steeves, our Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. After a review of these results and an update on the company's activities and business environment, we'll be happy to take your questions. But first, please note, that various remarks we may 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 on our most recent Form 10-K. which is 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 on 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 date subsequent to today, February 20th, 2020-26. Also during this call, we'll be referring to non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the extent that they are available without unreasonable effort are included in our press release filed on form 8K with the SEC. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Ned Coletta to begin our discussion.

Thanks, Brian. Good morning from Rutland, Vermont. As my first earnings call as CEO, I want to begin by saying how honored I am to lead this exceptional team into the next chapter of Casella's growth. I'm energized by the opportunities ahead and confident in our ability to continue building long-term value for our shareholders, customers, and employees. We close the fourth quarter with performance that reflects sustained organic growth, meaningful operating improvement, and continued strategic momentum across the business. For the full year 2025, revenues increased 18%, adjusted EBITDA increased 17%, and adjusted free cash flow increased 14%. This marks our fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth across each of these three metrics, a testament to the durability of our business model and the strength of our strategic plan. Importantly, adjusted EBITDA margins, excluding acquisitions, expanded 55 basis points year over year. Margin improvement was driven by disciplined collection pricing, higher landfill volumes, operational efficiencies, and synergy realization from prior acquisitions. We completed nine acquisitions in 2025, representing over $115 million in annualized revenues. We started 2026 strong, and on January 1st, we closed the Mountain State waste acquisition, which adds approximately another $30 million in annualized revenues and expands our mid-Atlantic segment into the West Virginia market. our balance sheet remains a strategic advantage for us. We finished the year at 2.3 times levered with over $700 million in liquidity to fund future growth. Our acquisition pipeline remains robust with opportunities to further densify within our existing footprint and growth options to selectively expand into geographically adjacent markets that align with our strategic plan. Now, looking at our 2025 segment performance, in our solid waste collection and disposal operations, revenues increased 20.3%, driven by disciplined organic growth and another strong year of acquisitions. Base collection and disposal margins, excluding acquisition impacts, increased 170 basis points year over year as we generated a positive price-to-cost spread, continued acquisition integration efforts, drove higher landfill volumes, mainly through internalization, and generated cost savings through operational optimization initiatives. In the second half of 2025, vehicle deliveries improved as expected, and we received 40 automated trucks that were delayed earlier in the year. We expect these vehicles, along with the associated labor efficiencies and route optimization, to generate more than $5 million of savings in 2026. Our team did a great job in the second half of 2025 advancing the key acquisition integration and system conversion initiatives in our Mid-Atlantic region. We have substantially completed the migration of customers from acquired billing systems to the integrated Casello lead to cash system, and we expect the remaining migration work to be completed by the end of the first quarter or very early in the second quarter. Once completed, we can start the real exciting work of rolling out additional automated trucks, consolidating routes, and optimizing pricing and profitability. We continue to make permitting progress on our expansion efforts at our Hakes and Highland landfills in New York, with the Hakes permit expected in the next couple of quarters and the Highland permit expected within the year. We are working to more than double the annual permit at Highland from 460,000 tons a year to a million tons. And we would also add close to 60 years of capacity at current run rate. At the Hakes C&D landfill, we're permitting a 10 plus year expansion. These expansions are important with the expected closures in New York over the next several years, including the expected closure of the Ontario County landfill at the end of 2028. The McKean landfill rail upgrade project remains on track for completion in the second quarter of 2026. This will allow us to offload municipal solid waste, contaminated soils, and C&D materials from gondolas at the landfill. Our resource solution segment also delivers strong year with revenues up 9.1% and segment adjusted EPA DA up 9.6%. This reflects strong national accounts performance and operational efficiencies from the upgraded Willimantic recycling facility. While current recycled commodity prices are trading at roughly 20% below 10-year averages, our effective risk management programs pass much of this commodity volatility back to our customers through the floating processing and SRA fees. These tried and true programs are effectively offsetting about 80% of all commodity downside risk, helping us to generate consistent returns on our recycling business in all market cycles. Pivoting to 2026, we exited the year with strong momentum and a solid setup for this year. Our frontline team has done an amazing job this winter, providing solid customer service through one of the coldest and snowiest winters we've experienced in over a decade. Despite these operational headwinds from the bad winter weather, we remain very confident in our outlook, driven by sustained pricing strength, continued self-help cost initiatives, automation benefits, and a very attractive acquisition pipeline of over $500 million of annualized revenues. We're focused on both densification and strategic expansion opportunities. Our team is laser focused on improving safety and employee engagement in 2026. We've added several key new safety and HR leaders to the organization. We're focused on process improvements, and we're investing in key systems such as AI-enabled onboard truck technology. With that, I'll turn it over to Brad to provide additional details on the fourth quarter performance and financial results.