Canadian National Railway Company

Good afternoon. My name is Mika and I will be your operator today. Welcome to CN Second Quarter's 2021 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. All participants are now in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Butcher, Vice President, Investor Relations. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Butcher.

Well, thank you, Nika. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for CN's second quarter 2021 financial results conference call. Now, before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to the forward-looking statements and additional legal information available at the beginning of the presentation. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. and Canadian securities law. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements and are more fully described in our cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements in our presentation. After the prepared remarks, we will conduct a Q&A session. I do want to remind you to please limit yourself to one question. The IR team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to CN's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. J.J. Rouet.

Thank you, Paul, and thank you, Nika. So good afternoon, everyone. And today we have two items for this call. First, we want to highlight our quality results. and also we want to give you an update on our KCS combination. Therefore, the call might be a bit longer than usual today. But first, our thought goes out to the community and First Nation of Lytton in BC and the terrible fires impacting British Columbia this summer. We are committed to helping our neighbours in crisis and the several CN employees whose life has been impacted by the natural disaster. Let's go to the Q2 highlight on page 6. I want to start by saying how proud I am of our dedicated shareholders' performance this year, the hard work and exceptional effort that our people continue to deliver on the business. Our results reflect broad-based strength and forward momentum across all of our business and also the enduring power of our vast and diversified CN network. For three quarters in a row, we have delivered year-over-year growth in our EPS. In the last quarter, Our adjusted diluted EPS was $1.49, which is up 16% versus last year, but it's also up 25% at a constant currency. Our operating income is up 76% year-over-year, and adjusted operating income is up 9%. We helped enable the economy with exceptional growth. Volume was up 13%. We diligently worked in our combination with KCS, and we also stayed focused on our yield management and network operation execution. The freight revenue per car load grew 7%, and same-store pricing was up well over 4% in the second quarter. Safety performance, employee engagement index, customer sentiment index have all sequentially improved. We are focused on our customers, on our safety, and on the combination with KCS, all of which will drive long-term value creation for our shareholders. We have confidence in the future. I will now pass it on to Rob, who will review our operation. Rob? All right. Thank you, JJ.