Itron, Inc.

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to ITRON's third quarter 2024 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host, Paul Vincent, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to ITRON's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Tom Dietrich, ITRON's president and chief executive officer, and Joan Hooper, senior vice president and chief financial officer, will review ITRON's third quarter results and provide a general business update and outlook. Earlier today, the company issued a press release announcing its results. This release also includes details related to the conference call, and webcast replay information. Accompanying today's call is a presentation that is available through the webcast and on our corporate website under the investor relations tab. Following prepared remarks, the call will open for questions using the process the operator described. Before Tom begins, a reminder that our earnings release and financial presentation include non-GAAP financial information that we believe enhances the overall understanding of our current and future performance. Reconciliations of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings release and on our investor relations website. We will be making statements during this call that are forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations because of factors that were presented in today's earnings release and comments made during this conference call, as well as those presented in the risk factor section of our Form 10-K and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All company comments, estimates, or forward-looking statements are made in a good faith attempt to provide appropriate insight to our current and future operating and financial environment. Materials discussed today, October 31st, 2024, may materially change, and we do not undertake any duty to update any of our forward-looking statements. Now, please turn to page four of our presentation as our CEO, Tom Dietrich begins his remarks.

Thank you, Paul. Good morning to everyone. And thank you for joining our call. ITROM's third quarter results were ahead of our expectations and reflect another quarter of solid execution delivered by our team. The continued market demand fueled by growth in energy and water needs supports our substantial pipeline of opportunities for the future. Financial highlights for the third quarter are shown on slide five and include revenue of $615 million, adjusted EBITDA of $89 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.84, free cash flow of $59 million. Turning to slide six, our backlog at the end of third quarter was $4 billion, and bookings during the quarter were $487 million. Noteworthy bookings in the third quarter include Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative selected ITRON's GenX technology platform through our distribution partner, NRTC. Arkansas Valley was one of the first Department of Energy Smart Grid Program awardees to complete negotiations with the DOE, receiving a grant for their grid intelligence and distribution automation project. Additionally, CenterPoint Energy is working with ITRON to offer the additional safety features of IntelliGas endpoints to commercial and industrial users. The enhanced safety capabilities include an integrated shutoff valve and pressure sensing with edge intelligence. This expansion further demonstrates CenterPoint's commitment to the safety of their users. Finally, we've expanded our support of Duke Energy to include our latest grid edge and distributed intelligence capabilities for DERMS control. In our prior quarterly call, we commented that regulatory and funding processes can extend the time from project award to booking recognition due to our disciplined approach to register an award as backlog. This can increase the quarter to quarter variability in bookings for any given period. and calendar 2024 is no exception. We are pleased with the pace of the various regulatory and funding processes within the first month of this quarter, fourth quarter 24. As a result, we maintain conviction for a book to bill ratio of one to one or greater for the full year. Now Joan will provide details of our third quarter results and our fourth quarter outlook.