Hertz Global Holdings, Inc

only mode. Following management's commentary, we will conduct a question and answer session. I would like to remind you that this morning's call is being recorded by the company. I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Johan Rawlinson, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. By now, you should have our earnings press release and associated financial information. We've also provided slides to accompany our conference call. and these can be accessed through the investor relations section of our website. I would like to remind you that certain statements made on this call contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance and by their nature are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Any forward-looking information relayed on this call speaks only as of today's date and the company undertakes no obligation to update that information to reflect change circumstances. Additional information concerning these statements, including factors that could cause our actual results to differ, is contained in our earnings press release and in the risk factors and forward-looking statement section in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our filings are available on the SEC's website and the investor relations section of the Hertz website. Today we'll use certain non-GAAP financial measures which are reconciled with GAAP numbers in our earnings press release and earnings presentation available on our website. We believe that these non-GAAP measures provide additional useful information about our operations, allowing better evaluation of our profitability and performance. Unless otherwise noted, our discussion today focuses on our global business. On the call this morning, we have Gil West, our recently appointed chief executive officer, Alex Brooks, our chief financial officer, and Justin Kepi, our chief operating officer. We are also joined by Darren Errington, our executive vice president for revenue management and fleet. I'll now turn the call over to Gil.

Well, thanks and good morning, and thank you all for joining the call today. I want to acknowledge right up front that this was a challenging quarter for Hertz. We have a lot of work still to do, and I'll get to that shortly. But since I'm new to most of you, I want to take a few minutes to introduce myself before we dive into the numbers. So let me start by saying that I'm excited to be here. And there's a lot of reasons for that. First, this is a great company with an iconic brand. Hertz invented the car rental business and has introduced many innovations over the years. I've been looking at the brand data and talking to customers, and I'm struck by how many of them have been fiercely loyal to the brand, and I've been one of those customers for a long time. Customer loyalty is the key to success in a business like ours. I'll come back to that point. Second, I'm deeply impressed by the Hertz people I've met. At the airport rental counters, in our behind-the-scene operations, in our call centers, and at our headquarters here in Estero, they are committed to the business and want to win. They are full of good ideas and have a deep desire to serve our customers. Third, I see enormous potential for the company. Hertz has over 100 years of experience managing physical assets and operations at scale. We acquire nearly 20 million unique customers a year, operate over 11,000 global locations, drive 80% utilization of assets, and have over half a million vehicles. And this creates a powerful platform that positions our company well for the future. Fourth, and this is personal, but I love cars. I got my start in my father's auto parts store when I was a kid. repaired traded collected and race cars is a hobby my whole life so leading a company that's in the business of cars is a dream come true for me as I've said at the beginning of the call we have a lot of work to do so getting ahead of our challenges is what we owe our customers our people to our investors and I look forward to leading the team to make it happen As I'm settling into my new role, there are a number of key priorities I'm focused on. It starts with having the right fleet. So balancing short-term decisions with long-term implications to drive a better return on assets. This includes making sure that we have the right supply and demand balance of our fleet at the appropriate capital cost. Decisions around our fleet are based on return on assets and the discipline of fleeting inside the projected demand curve to ensure we achieve favorable revenue per day and revenue per unit performance, along with better managing our residual value risk. Next is delivering operational excellence, which is fundamental and leads to best in class unit cost and a superior customer experience, and in turn, higher unit revenues. We must leverage our products, our fleet, our brands, and our customer experience to keep customers coming back and delivering a value proposition which commands a higher yield. We also must deliver on our operational cost and productivity initiatives that you heard about on our last call. And I'm an operations geek and have been for most of my career. For me, operational excellence is essential and execution is the key. So in my prior life at the airlines, I was part of the team that transformed the industry from leveraging operational excellence and our products to deliver a better customer experience. And through that customer loyalty, we were able to deliver unit revenue premiums to the industry and combined with our obsessive cost management, achieve unprecedented profitability. Putting those same pieces together here at Hertz will unlock premium revenue and and put us in control of RPD to drive growth, profitability, and value. So, while it's early days for me, I'm eager to look further down the road at more ways Hertz can compete and win, but none of that is to take our eyes off the short-term operational priorities. Our quarterly results were unacceptable and reflected the impact of a decline in forward residual values used to determine vehicle depreciation. coupled with our EV rationalization and elevated cost structure. And to go a step further, while overall demand for travel remains strong, our RPD remains well above pre-COVID levels. Our revenue performance is not fully capturing the opportunities available to us. This is also immediate focus area for the team. And as we said previously, 2024 will be a transition year for us. The necessary work is already underway. And I know Hertz people wake up every morning eager to run the best operations possible, to delight our customers, win their loyalty, create value, manage cost, and win in the marketplace. That's really why I'm energized to be here, and that's why I'm so optimistic. I look forward to your questions later in the call, but first I want Justin to bring you up to speed on our delivery against our operational commitments, and then Alex will do the numbers. So, Justin, over to you.