Acuity Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to Acuity Brands' fiscal 2020 second quarter financial conference call. After today's presentation, there will be a formal question and answer session. To ask a question, please press the star, then one key, on your telephone. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I would like to introduce Mr. Pete Chenin, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning. With me today to discuss our fiscal 2020 second quarter results are Neil Ash, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Darren Holcomb, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Ricky Ruiz, our Executive Vice President and President of Acuity Brands Lighting. We are webcasting today's conference call at acuitybrands.com. During this call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Refacilitations to comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in our second quarter press release and 10Q SEC filings. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make projections or forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, such that actual results may differ materially. Further forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly any of these statements in light of new information or future events. Please refer to our most recent 10-K and 10-Q SEC filing in today's press release, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. Now, I'm going to turn this call over to Neil Ash.

Thanks, Pete. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be with you today to talk about acuity. Obviously, we all wish the global context were different right now. We are embarking on the next generation of Acuity. As we start on that journey, we are dealing with a shock spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we manage through the current situation and begin to change our company for the future, we do so with a strong financial footing, with a market-leading position in our core business, and with a strong team to navigate the company through this. Given that we're new together, I want to outline what we will cover today. First, I will give you some perspective on our second quarter performance. and Karen will go into more detail about the financials. Then I will cover how we prepared for and how we are handling the shocks related to COVID-19. I will provide you with some of my initial observations of the company, talk to you about digital transformation, and give an outline of who I think Acuity is and can become. For consistency, we will continue to discuss the business and present metrics that you have traditionally seen for at least the remainder of this fiscal year. Following our opening comments, Ricky Reese will join us for the Q&A period. Our second quarter performance was a mixed bag of continuing trends with several signs of improvement. After a very weak December, the business picked up in January and February, and we began to see real traction, specifically in our independent sales network channel, which represents over two-thirds of our sales and was up over 4% for the quarter, inclusive of TLG. Some of the business and product highlights included success with our contractor-select products, Sales were at 30% this quarter. We successfully launched Modulus Technologies. Modulus is a proprietary and innovative low-voltage distributed power and control system for LED luminaires, enabling design flexibility, greater connectivity options, and lower installation costs. And the integration of TLG is progressing as expected and is accretive to our performance. Those were balanced by some of the same dynamics that you have heard from Acuity in the past. We continue to face year-over-year revenue declines in retail as a result of our changed home center strategy and in corporate accounts as a result of the timing of relight projects at several large retailers. We expect these dynamics to continue. We also saw revenue declines in direct sales of industrial and infrastructure accounts, primarily due to large projects in the prior year that did not repeat. Despite that revenue performance, we were able to expand gross margins year-over-year and to generate strong cash flow. both of which demonstrate the adaptability and durability of our core lighting business. With that, I'll turn it over to Karen for more details on the financials. Karen?