Premier, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to Premier's fiscal 2025 first 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 by pressing star then zero 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 one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ben Krasinski, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to Premier's fiscal 2025 first quarter 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 most recent Form 10-K and our 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 10Q for the quarter and our Earnings Form 8K, both of which we expect to file soon. I will now turn the call over to Mike Alkire.

Mike Alkire Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that fiscal 2025 first quarter results slightly exceeded our expectations for total net revenue and profitability, giving us confidence in reaffirming our fiscal 2025 guidance. From a segment perspective, supply chain services revenue exceeded our expectations, while performance services revenue fell slightly short of what we anticipated for the quarter. Craig will provide more details later in the call. In addition, we return capital to stockholders through our quarterly cash dividend and the repurchase of Class A common shares during the quarter under our previously announced $1 billion share repurchase authorization. Today marks Election Day in the United States. As a reminder, our strategies are designed to be less reliant on political and regulatory influences. and more concentrated on addressing the core challenges faced by our members and other customers. Our strategies and member relationships are founded on the understanding that improving healthcare delivery for patients relies on reducing costs and improving outcomes through technologies. Regardless of the outcome, our commitment to improving the health of communities we serve remains unwavering. Turning to our business. Momentum continues to grow in the market for Premier's technology-driven supply chain strategy. By collaborating closely with our members and leveraging technology and services, we're identifying additional cost savings opportunities for our members while enhancing contract penetration in our group purchasing programs. Our strong member relationships have driven progress in contract renewals, which are also opening the door for us to have deeper and more strategic and data-driven discussions with members on opportunities for improvement. Our high renewal rate reflects our commitment to collaboration and the trust we've built with our members over the years. In addition, we continue to partner with our members, manufacturers, government agencies, and other stakeholders to help mitigate the impact that recent hurricanes have had on supply chains and hospital operations across the American communities. With these challenges, the need for Premier to support our member hospitals and health systems remains at an all-time high. Premier's response to each disaster reinforces our commitment to enhancing the overall healthcare system's predictability, resilience, and response through technology enablement. These trying times have been particularly challenging for our health system members. Our job is to minimize the impact to be a vital ally in building the future of healthcare. Turning to our performance services business, we continue to focus on opportunities to utilize our robust data and AI-enabled technology to deliver unparalleled insights and efficiencies for our members and other customers. For example, we were pleased to renew and extend our engagement with a government agency that leverages Premier's data set and proprietary performance improvement methodologies to scale improvements in maternal and infant health outcomes in hospitals across the nation. We also extended our partnership with one of the top pharma companies in the world to include additional real-world evidence and observational research related to their innovations in Alzheimer's disease. This work underscores our unique differentiation in the marketplace that facilitates better, smarter, faster healthcare, better with national scale, smarter with real-time actionable insights, and faster with AI-enabled technologies. We also continue to advance our sustainability efforts. A few weeks ago, we published our 2024 Sustainability Report and Climate Resilience Plan, highlighting our many practices and initiatives aimed at improving healthcare, operating responsibly, and positively impacting communities. Before I hand it over to Craig, I want to take a moment to express our gratitude for his 27 years of service. He has been an incredible leader for Premier and exemplifies integrity in all he does. We wish him the best in his retirement. We also look forward to introducing you to our new Chief Administrative and Financial Officer, Glenn Coleman, during our second quarter earnings call in February. Craig?