Premier, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to Premier's Fiscal 2024 Third Quarter Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist for pressing the star key on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To try your question, please press star, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. Now I turn the conference over to Ben Krasinski, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to Premier's Fiscal 2024 Third Quarter Conference Call. Our speakers this morning are Mike Alkire, Premier's President and CEO, and Craig McCaffin, our Chief Administrative and Financial Officer. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that our earnings release and the supplemental presentation accompanying this call are available in the investor section of our website at investors.premierinc.com. Please be advised that management's remarks today contain certain forward-looking statements, such as statements regarding our strategies, plans, prospects, expectations, and future performance, and the actual results could differ materially from those discussed today. These forward-looking statements speak as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them. Factors that might affect future results are discussed in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for the quarter, which we expect to file soon. We encourage you to review the detailed forward-looking statement and risk factor disclosures in these reports. Also, during this presentation, we will refer to adjusted and other non-GAAP financial measures, including free cash flow to evaluate our business. Information on why we use these measures in addition to GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and in the appendix of the supplemental presentation accompanying this call. Information on our non-GAAP financial measures will also be included in our Form 10-Q for the quarter and our Earnings Form 8-K, both of which we expect to furnish to the SEC soon. I will now turn the call over to Mike Alkire. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

Today we will share our fiscal 2024 third quarter operating results. We'll also provide some highlights. on the progress we continue to make advancing our strategy to drive healthcare performance improvement through further technology enablement of our capabilities. Lastly, we'll provide an update on our outlook for fiscal 2024, as well as provide some initial perspectives on fiscal 2025. First, let me say that I am proud of how our team executed this quarter to deliver operating performance that exceeded our expectations for profitability and has us on track to meet our guidance, which we are reaffirming for the full year. For the third quarter, total net revenue increased from the prior year period driven by growth in both our supply chain services and performance services segments. We also continued to return additional capital to stockholders as we implemented our $400 million accelerated share repurchase transaction during the quarter. We continue to execute with discipline as we advance our two core strategies, technology enabling and streamlining all aspects of supply chain and leveraging our unique data, technology and AI capabilities to support provider performance improvement and growth in certain adjacent markets. Regarding our technology-enabled supply chain strategy, we made progress driving adoption of our digital supply chain capabilities as we continue to roll out automated invoicing and payable capabilities to large integrated delivery networks and other providers. We believe these solutions are differentiated in the market and can be a key enabler for providers to better manage labor costs and increase working capital. allowing for better cash flow management and helping to support organizational growth initiatives. We've also renewed, expanded, and signed new partnership agreements with providers and key suppliers. And we continue to deliver significant value in the market. For example, Polita Health, a five-hospital system in western New York, leveraged Premier's capabilities to realize over $75 million in savings during the last five years. all while maintaining high quality care and outcomes for their patients. Kaleida utilizes our robust data and analytics, as well as our supply chain co-management capabilities. And together, we align clinical and supply chain teams with industry leading data and insights to enable smarter purchasing decisions. With respect to our AI driven provider performance improvement strategy, We're excited to announce the recent release of the 100 top hospitals in partnership with Fortune Magazine. This transparent ratings program provides vital insights for providers seeking market differentiation and performance enhancement. Importantly, the success of this program and our roadmap for its enhancements have helped us open doors and expand partnerships, including a signed deal with one of the nation's largest health systems. We also continue to expand relationships and establish new partnerships with hospitals and health systems to drive margin improvement. These engagements underscore the essential role our technology enabled solutions play in supporting and enhancing healthcare delivery. For example, a large regional system recently expanded our multi-decade partnership. As part of this agreement, they will deploy our advanced analytics and AI enabled technology across their entire system. This included clinical decision support capabilities, specifically our AI-enabled clinical documentation solution that Craig will speak further about later in the call. Before I conclude, I wanted to commend our team for their dedication and commitment as they continue to innovate to enable better, smarter healthcare for member health system providers and the communities they serve. I will now turn the call over to Craig for a more comprehensive discussion on our financial results and outlook.