Custom Truck One Source, Inc.

quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Please note this conference call is being recorded. After today's market close, Custom Truck issued a press release announcing NESCO's first quarter results available on Custom Truck's investor relations website at investors.customtruck.com. Management's comments on today's call regarding first quarter results will pertain to the pre-merger performance of NESCO. I would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risk factors section of the company's filings with the SEC. Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of the historical non-GAAP financial measures discussed during the call in the press release issued today. I will now turn the call over to Fred Ross, Chief Executive Officer of Custom Truck OneSource. Please go ahead.

Thank you everyone for joining us on Custom Truck's first quarter earnings call. I'd like to extend a special welcome to the employees, customers, and investors of Nesco. We completed the transformational combination of Custom Truck with Nesco on April 1st, creating a leading one-stop shop provider of specialty equipment, serving attractive and growing end markets. Our timing is favorable, following unprecedented disruption from a global pandemic with our industry now entering a recovery phase benefiting from pen of demand, powerful secular growth drivers, and further potential tailwinds with proposed infrastructure legislation. I'll focus the majority of my remarks today on the merger and compelling opportunities it created. I will then turn over the call to Ryan McMoneagle, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to provide an update on the positive industry trends we are seeing. Our merger integration and our plans to drive further growth. Then Brad Meter, our chief financial officer, will briefly review the first quarter results. We are extremely excited to be bringing these two companies together. Both Custom Truck and ESCO have strong teams that perform very well during the years past pandemic. Keeping their focus on business operations, taking care of customers. We are energized and acting with tremendous collaborative spirit as we integrate these two great companies. As I have gotten to know the Nesco organization better, my respect has only grown for the quality of their team and the impressive operations they've built over the years. Both organizations are already learning from one another, leveraging best practices and targeting significant growth and cost synergies. As we unlock the enormous potential of the combined enterprise, I would especially like to call out the contributions and proven adaptability of all custom truck and Nesco employees as we work through this transition. 2020 was a challenging year for everyone, but that requires tremendous adaptability due to COVID, and both teams proved resilient. Our given similar cultures has been easy to arrive at a guiding principle beyond all of our decisions, and our focus is quite simple. Take care of our customers. This has been true through COVID, and it's been true now as we join forces to provide even better service in the future. I'm pleased to say that our collaborative teams very efficiently used the four months between merger announcement and completion. We put detailed integration plans in place, which enabled us to hit the ground running. The team is executing well, and service levels have remained at the high level our customers have come to expect. Our customer feedback has been very encouraging as well. customers understand how they will benefit from our broader geographic footprint, our expanded rental fleet, and our enhanced one-stop shop capabilities. Our rental fleets were of similar size, so we're now able to effectively draw on double the fleet, adding both flexibility and scale. In addition, each company added breadth of products and services, so we're able to solve more customers' problems and capture greater wallet share. Specifically, Nesco customers will benefit from larger fleet size, and greater financial flexibility that will allow for better responsiveness and flexibility than ever before. The custom truck customers will benefit from increased parts of distribution service and network. Customers like what they see so far and have already entered into the multiple cross-selling contracts under which we are selling existing customers' products that were previously unavailable. As a combined company, we're positioned extremely well to capitalize on the robust tailwinds and our core markets. With NESCO meeting first quarter expectations and CTAS experiencing strong year-over-year growth, we feel confident in our outlook. With that, I will turn it over to Ryan McMonigle to provide commentary on industry outlooks, merger integrations, and capital plannings. Ryan?

Thank you, Fred. Customer demand and the industry outlook are robust. Customers eager to play catch-up following COVID project delays were strong renters and buyers of whole goods during the first quarter. Rental demand is also strong, with both legacy custom truck and legacy Nesco fleets achieving over 78% utilization during the first quarter and seeing further utilization gains into the second quarter. Our customers are communicating that there is pent-up demand and a need to make up last year's project delays. and they increasingly feel well prepared to operate safely. So far this quarter, we have continued to see increases in equipment on rent and unit sales as new projects are being started by our customers. At its core, our role is to provide, repair, and maintain specialty equipment for essential utility, telecom, and other critical projects. The proposed infrastructure bill could add additional tailwinds as the recovery accelerates. With $100 billion dedicated to the electric grid, $100 billion to the broadband network, and $174 billion to increase reliance on electric vehicles, spending on new construction that would utilize our equipment could see a significant boost. Even prior to any proposed infrastructure bill, industry fundamentals are strong. The power outages in Texas earlier this year highlight the need for upgrades to our nation's transmission and distribution systems in a highly publicized way. Our customers continue to have record or near-record backlogs. Multi-billion dollar capital projects in transmission and distribution have been announced to support grid maintenance, fire hardening, and alternative energy. Likewise, multi-billion dollar capital projects have been announced in telecom to increase connectivity and for the rollout of 5G. Secular trends towards rental away from ownership continue amongst our customers. I will now turn to the merger of Custom Truck with Nesco. Integration teams at both companies went above and beyond preparing for the combination that took place on April 1st. This enabled us to coordinate very quickly to have a unified customer calling effort and to be able to draw on a unified fleet almost immediately after the merger was completed. From a synergy perspective, we have spent many months planning the integration. We are confident that we can meet the $50 million synergy target by the end of 2022, as outlined when the merger was announced. And we expect to achieve $20 to $25 million of this on a run rate basis by the end of 2021. From a capital allocation perspective, we will continue to make targeted investments in our fleet to drive revenue and earnings while maintaining the proper balance with debt reduction. With strong near and long-term demand fundamentals and a strong balance sheet with ample liquidity, we are well positioned to make prudent and strategic investments. We will maintain a disciplined, analytical approach to ensure we invest in assets that are core to our business and that will drive strong shareholder returns. We may also look opportunistically to expand through bulk on acquisitions or fleet purchases should attractive opportunities arise, always in a disciplined manner. As part of our capital allocation framework, we will also seek to opportunistically deleverage through a combination of EBITDA expansion and utilizing our positive cash flows to reduce debt. In closing, echoing Fred's remarks, I too would like to recognize the dedication and professionalism of our employees. Their ability to adapt to new conditions and adhere to new safety protocols enabled us to keep every branch operational for our customers during the pandemic, and I look forward to seeing what these teams will accomplish together in the months ahead. I will now turn our call over to Brad Meter, our CFO, for a more detailed discussion of our financial performance. Brad?