Hubbell Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Hubble Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2020 results 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 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I'll now like to hand the conference over to Dan Inamorato. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2020. The press release and slides are posted to the investor section of our website at www.hubble.com. I'm joined today by our President and CEO, Gervin Bakker, and our Executive Vice President and CFO, Bill Sperry. Please note that our comments this morning may include statements related to the expected future results of our company and and are forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Therefore, please note the discussion of forward-looking statements in our press release and consider it incorporated by reference into this call. Additionally, comments may also include non-GAAP financial measures. Those measures are reconciled to the comparable GAAP measures that are included in the press release and slides. Now let me turn the call over to Gervin.

Good. Thanks, Dan. And good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us to discuss Hubble's fourth quarter results on this snowy Tuesday morning. And I suppose if there is such a thing as a positive from COVID, it's that most of us are still at home and don't have to brave snow and difficult commutes at this time. But before we get to the results for the quarter, I want to take a few minutes to reflect on our strong performance for the year. and recognize all our employees who made that possible through their tireless efforts and dedication. The COVID-19 pandemic presented us with considerable end market, operational, as well as personal challenges. But our employees consistently rose to the occasion, delivering exceptional performance for our customers and shareholders. Our first priority through this pandemic has always been the health and safety of our employees. and we implemented a series of safety protocols to protect employees in our plants, warehouses, and in the field. We also recognized our frontline workers with bonus appreciation pay for their efforts and provided generous paid leave policies for all employees. Our next priority was to continue serving our customers with the essential products necessary for the safety and reliability of critical infrastructure. Our employees, again, proved to be flexible and adaptable in maintaining high levels of productivity while continuing to deliver best-in-class quality and service that the Hubbell brands are known for. Our next priority was to operate with discipline and maintain strong liquidity for our shareholders, and despite considerable end markets and operational headwinds as a result of this pandemic, the company achieved full-year adjusted operating margins, which were essentially flat the prior year, as well as free cash flow generation of 560 million, reflecting 12% growth over 2019 levels. We accomplished this by focusing on what we could control, including a rigorous drive on productivity, along with disciplined operating expense and working capital management. Hubbell's ongoing operational transformation and footprint optimization investments are producing sustainable savings, and we expect to continue providing significant future benefits. While this pandemic is not yet behind us, I am confident in our organizational ability to continue to deliver on our promises and commitments to our customers and shareholders. Now moving on to the result for the quarter and starting on page three. We see solid performance in our utility solution segment with continued strength in demand for grid modernization and renewables investments, driving mid-single-digit growth in power system business in the quarter. As expected, our electrical end market volumes remain soft But we saw a steady pickup in momentum exiting the fourth quarter and continuing into January, which gives us confidence these markets are beginning to improve. Our operational transformation continues to provide structural savings and drive our margin performance, while also contributing to strong free cash flow. This allows us to invest organically and through acquisition, and we'll walk you through some of the ways we are deploying our capital to increase shareholder value later. And finally, we're providing guidance for 2021 today, and we'll take you through that in more detail during this call. But the overall takeaway is that we are anticipating a return to growth while remaining focused on our operating discipline, actively managing our cost structure, and investing in future growth. Turning now to page four with financial highlights for the quarter, you can see organic sales declined 7%. Demand for utility T&D components in our power systems business remains strong as our utility customers continue to invest to upgrade, modernize, and harden critical grid infrastructure, while Aclara still experienced COVID-19-related project delays. The electrical markets improved, particularly exiting the fourth quarter. Adjusted operating margins of 13.4% declined 60 basis points year over year as a result of lower volumes and a non-repeat of a benefit from tariff mitigation in the fourth quarter of 2019, which we previously disclosed. Excluding the impact of this prior year benefit, we would have expanded adjusted operating margins once again in the fourth quarter as our restructuring program and cost controls continued to offset lower volumes. Finally, we achieved another quarter of strong free cash flow generation to cap off a year of double-digit growth to disciplined working capital management. With this, let me turn it over to Bill to walk you through our financial results in more detail. Bill?