Herc Holdings Inc.

After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star. Head of Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to HERC Rental's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. Earlier today, our press release and presentation slides were furnished, and our 10-Q was filed with the SEC. All are posted on the events page of our IR website. Today, we're reviewing our first quarter 2024 results with comments on operations and our financials, including our view of the industry and our strategic outlook. The prepared remarks will be followed by an open Q&A. Now, let's move on to our safe harbor and gap reconciliation on slide three. Today's call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we see it today and therefore involve risks and uncertainties. I would caution you that our actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made on the call. You should refer to the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023. In addition to the financial results presented on a GAAP basis, we will be discussing non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent can be found in the conference call materials. A replay of this call can be accessed via dial-in through our webcast on our website. Replay instructions were included in our earnings release this morning. We have not given permission for any other recording of this call and do not approve or sanction any transcribing of the call. Finally, please mark your calendars to join our management team at three industrial conferences this quarter. We'll be at Bank of America's conference on May 14th in New York, KeyBank's conference in Boston on May 30th, and Wells Fargo's Chicago conference on June 11th. This morning, I'm joined by Larry Silber, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aaron Birnbaum, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mark Humphrey, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Larry.

Thank you, Leslie, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide number four. We're off to a solid start in 2024. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA were first quarter record highs, driven by continued strong volume growth and a 5% increase in rental rate year over year. These results reflect total company performance, including our center lease business. Our flexible business model, diverse customer base, and broad equipment portfolio enabled us to generate top line growth in the first quarter across both core and specialty categories and local and national accounts. By capturing an outside share of market volume, generating rate growth to offset fleet inflation, and delivering operating efficiencies, adjusted EBITDA increased 10% over the prior year. Reported adjusted EBITDA margin in the first quarter benefited from operating leverage and the early stages of recovery in the studio entertainment market after last year's labor strikes. Mark will take you through the core business performance, excluding Sinalese in just a minute. The core business is where we align with our full year guidance. Moving to slide five, you can see that the successful execution of our strategies is driving our continued improved performance. As we scale our business for sustainable growth, we are investing in expanding our branch network. In the first quarter, we completed four strategic acquisitions and opened four greenfield locations in key markets. We also invested in our high-margin ProSolutions fleet to address growing demand, capture cross-selling synergies, and support new specialty locations. Our specialty offering is expanding with our investments in trench-suring over the last two years. In fact, in the first quarter, We acquired our largest trend-sharing business to date, bolstering our expert solutions offerings for our customers. Our innovative customer-facing digital capabilities are also improving the customer experience while streamlining transactions and enhancing productivity. When it comes to capital allocation, our current strategy reflects where we are in terms of our opportunity to grow the business. With all of the capabilities we've built over the last eight years, from systems to procurement to logistics to product and end market expertise, and at a time in the cycle where federally funded megaprojects and manufacturing and reshoring are setting the stage for a multi-year foundational growth, investments in fleet and M&A continue to be priorities of our capital allocation framework. We view capital allocation as a strategic lever for us to generate value, and we feel really good about our progress on that front. One of the ways we're ensuring we create value from those investments is through the rollout of our business operating system, E3OS. Through standardized processes and continuous improvement mindset, E3OS touches every aspect of our business with a goal of ensuring Herc Rentals is easy to do business with, expert at what we do, and efficient in serving our customers. E3OS initiatives are already being put in place across the organization, and incremental progress will go a long way toward delivering a superior experience for our customers and greater operating leverage for our business. With that, I'll turn it over to Aaron to take you through the first quarter operating details and provide some color on market trends. And then Mark will walk you through a more detailed financial review, both with and without Sinalese. Aaron?