Ameresco, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first quarter 2023 Amoresco, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a 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 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw the question, simply press star 11 again. And be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lila Dillon, Senior Vice President of Marketing. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Carmen, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. Joining me here are George Sakolaris, Amoresco's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Doran Hull, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Josh Barabo, Senior Vice President, Finance, in for Mark Chiplock, who is traveling today. Before I turn the call over to George, I would like to make a brief statement regarding forward-looking remarks. Today's earnings materials contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our expectations. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to today's earnings materials, the Safe Harbor language on slide 2, and our SEC filings for a discussion of the major risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements. In addition, we use several non-GAAP measures when presenting our financial results. We have included the reconciliations to these measures in one of our supplemental financial information. I will now turn the call over to George. George?

Thank you, Lila. And good afternoon, everyone. First quarter results represent a solid start for the year. We were pleased to make significant progress in key areas that support our 2023 guidance as well as our long-term financial targets. The MISCO team, once again, executed well, delivering first quarter revenues higher than our expectations and adjusted EBITDA at the higher end of our guidance range. We also continued to lay the foundation for our ongoing success. As such, we were particularly pleased by the addition of new project awards of $472 million in the first quarter, which increased our total project backlog by 13% sequentially. We are executing on our contracted backlog and expect to convert a good portion of our awarded backlog to contracts throughout the year, giving us excellent visibility into our expected project revenue ramp in the second half of this year. We are seeing very strong customer interest across all our business lines. In fact, in this year's first quarter, the total value in the proposal we submitted was 50% higher compared with the same period last year. This reflects greater demand as well as a higher level of project complexity and scope. This increased activity is a function of our great value proposition, which addresses customer requirements for resiliency, cost savings, and carbon reduction. We are excited by the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, which provides broad and meaningful financial incentives and benefits for the range of clean energy technologies. MRSQ's technology-neutral business model is perfectly suited to assist customers in finding the best solutions to fit their energy needs and optimize the IRA's benefits. Well, we have seen a slight uptick in awards directly attributable to IRA benefits in Q1. We expect to see a greater impact in the company chorus in the years to come. The energy asset team, again, made excellent progress in the quarter, bringing 34 megawatts online. The recurring revenue model of our energy asset and O&M businesses helps to mitigate some of the time and issues inherent in our project business. Included in the assets we brought online this quarter was the 27 megawatt solar facility in Depew, Illinois. Depew is our largest operating solar asset to date and is representative of the largest size solar, battery, and RNG assets that we are pursuing. This year, we expect to add a total of 80 to 100 megawatts of energy assets into operation. These asset additions, along with continued strong performance in our O&M and other businesses, supports our confidence in our full year 23 guidance. Doran will provide more detail on our visibility during the financial discussion. As we noted last quarter, and Maresco continues to expand into the European market, building on our successful operations in the United Kingdom and Ireland. We expect our expansion to take several forms, including organic growth, acquisitions, joint ventures, and partnerships. This quarter, we entered the Italian market with our acquisition of Milan-based Energos. With a strong management team and market position, Energus has been offering energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions to the commercial and industrial markets for more than 15 years. We also recently announced the expansion of our partnership with the Sunel Group in Athens based international developer and EPC contractor for renewable energy projects. and Maresco and Sunel have established the Maresco-Sunel Energy, which is currently proposing a project pipeline of 1.5 gigawatts with an estimated $500 million in potential contract value in the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Romania. The joint venture has already been selected as a contractor for a 100-megawatt solar photovoltaic project in Greece, currently in construction, as well as various other smaller PV projects across commercial and industrial markets. Given the increasing importance of the European market to our future growth strategy and recognizing our large and growing European shareholder base, we are holding our investor day in London on May 11th. The event will primarily focus on our European strategy and the market and policy dynamics that we believe make this a very compelling opportunity for us. MRESCO's European Expression Plan will be selective and measured, maximizing potential shareholder value while minimizing execution risk. Given the importance of acquisitions and partners to this plan, We will hold a panel discussion with executives from both Anorgos and Sunil, as well as members of our finance team. We are also pleased to be hosting Bristol City Councilor Kai Dodd, whom we will be discussing our transformational Bristol City project from the customer's perspective. We believe our European expression will be an increasingly important contributor to our revenue and EBITDA growth in the coming years. Finally, we are always honored when our company and the solutions we provide are recognized in the industry. We recently were awarded the 2023 North American Energy Services Company of the Year. by the market research firm Frost & Sullivan. And our expertise in LED street lighting projects was also once again recognized as our Chicago Smart Light program was awarded the Inspiring Efficiency Impact Award by the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. I will now turn the call over to Doran to comment on our financial performance and outlook. Thank you, George, and good afternoon, everyone.