Premier, Inc.

Good day and welcome to Premier's fiscal 2024 fourth quarter and full year conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ben Krasinski, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to Premier's Fiscal 2024 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Conference Call. Our speakers this morning are Mike Alkire, Premier's President and CEO, and Craig McCasin, 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 Investors 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 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 fiscal 2024 Form 10-K, 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 fiscal 2024 Form 10-K and our earnings Form 8-K, both of which we expect to file soon. I will now turn the call over to Mike Alkire.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This morning, I'm pleased to share our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 results, which exceeded our expectations. I will also paint a vision for the year ahead, which includes, first, Advancing our strategy to technology enable better healthcare performance and a smarter supply chain. Second, continuing to return value to stockholders as our board approved execution of another share repurchase of $200 million of Class A common shares under our $1 billion share repurchase authorization. And third, our plan to divest non-core assets, S2S Global and Contigo Health, for which the processes launched in May remain ongoing, and we are hopeful to have something to announce soon. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge this morning's announcement. Craig McCaslin, our Chief Administrative and Financial Officer, has decided to retire on December 31, 2024, after more than 27 years with Premier. Craig will remain in his current role until his successor joins the company on November 11, 2021. 2024, and then will become an executive advisor through his retirement date. Following retirement, Craig will continue to serve in a consulting capacity for 24 months to support the company. We are incredibly grateful for Craig's contributions to our company's success and culture. During his tenure at Premier, Craig led the company through the initial integration following the 1996 mergers of the originally formed Premier, revenue growth from approximately $130 million to over $1.3 billion, the successful 2013 initial public offering, the 2020 and 2022 restructurings to simplify our corporate structure, and strategic expansion to the leading integrated healthcare performance improvement company, Premier, is today. While Craig's departure is bittersweet, we are pleased to announce Glenn Coleman as Craig's successor. Glenn is currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Dense Supply Sirona, a publicly traded healthcare manufacturing company in the Charlotte market. Prior to joining Dense Supply Sirona, Glenn served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Integra Life Sciences Holding Corporation, along with 25 additional years in financial management positions with leading global businesses. We are thrilled to welcome Glenn to Premier and are excited about the experiences and opportunities he will bring to help us further grow into the future. Turning to performance, I am pleased to report that thanks to our team's dedication and the trust of our members and other customers, Our fourth quarter and full year results for revenue and profitability in both segments surpassed our expectations. Our performance this fiscal year was fueled in part by our expanding role as a vital strategic partner for providers, manufacturers, and payers. From a provider standpoint, I'm incredibly proud of the team for achieving outstanding member retention with a 97% GPO retention rate and a 95% SAS institutional renewal rate for our core informatics and technology products. Additionally, our team collectively identified significant targeted supply chain savings for our members. Beyond retention, Premier is increasingly the partner of choice for those looking to drive growth beyond traditional boundaries. Our market edge is opening doors to innovative partnership proposals from technology enablement to full supply chain outsourcing. In fiscal 2024, we secured five new supply chain co-management agreements with health systems. I'm pleased to announce that Allspire Health Partners competitively selected Premier as its national GPO to support its more than $3.5 billion in annual purchase volume. One of the largest single volume deals in Premier history. We have several reasons to believe that there is a great deal of momentum in the market for some providers to contemplate a shift to more strategic partners that have the data, the technology, and the people to implement transformative, sustainable change. Change that alters the financial and operational trajectory of health systems and positions them for market differentiation. We also onboarded 32 new health systems into our healthcare-specific enterprise resource planning solution and continue to attract new logos with our market-leading AI-enabled clinical decision support solution. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, we secured a major integrated delivery network, and their health plan in the southwest U.S. which will now use our AI solution to automate prior authorization. From the perspective of healthcare product manufacturers, including life sciences companies, as well as payers, our long-term vision and strategy continues to materialize as we further expand into these adjacent markets. We are executing with precision on our plan to use our robust data and AI-enabled technology to deliver unparalleled insights, and efficiencies for these customers. Most recently, we leveraged our digital supply chain capabilities to ensure timely payment and accurate reporting for the manufacturers who take part in our high compliance programs. This model is proving to reduce the administrative burden on manufacturers and healthcare providers, while adding transparency and efficiency to the entire exchange. We believe technology enablement of our network of healthcare provider members and other customers will become a critical driver in accelerating innovation in healthcare. We believe this integration will pave the way for a united approach to delivering higher quality and more affordable healthcare. I want to once again thank our team for their steadfast commitment to our strategic vision and mission of improving the health of communities. In fiscal 2024, we again outperformed global benchmarks in our employee engagement survey, highlighting that Premier's greatest asset is indeed its people. I will now turn the call over to Craig for a closer look at our results, an update on our share repurchase program, and to provide our initial guidance for fiscal year 2025. Thanks, Mike.