Hubbell Inc

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2022 Hubble Incorporated Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Inamorato, Vice President, Investor Relations.

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 2022. The press release and slides are posted to the investor section of our website at hubble.com. I'm joined today by our Chairman, President, and CEO, Gervin Bakker, and our Executive Vice President and CFO, Bill Sperry. Please note our comments this morning may include statements related to the expected future results of our company and our 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 Gerbeth.

Great. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Hubbell's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. 2022 was a strong year for Hubbell. We effectively served our customers through a challenging operating environment, consistently delivering high-quality critical infrastructure solutions, which enable grid modernization and electrification in front of and behind the meter. We also delivered strong results for our shareholders, with full-year organic growth of 18 percent, adjusted operating profit growth of 29 percent, and adjusted earnings per share growth of 32 percent. We began 2022 by completing the divestiture of our CNI Lighting, successfully positioning the Hubbell portfolio for structurally higher long-term growth and margins. We also stepped up our investment levels to bolster our positions in key strategic growth verticals through acquisitions and organic innovation, expanded our capacity in areas of visible long-term growth, and to improve our manufacturing and distribution footprint for future productivity. Importantly, we've been able to fund these investments while still expanding operating margins, driven by strong execution on price cost in the face of significant inflationary and supply chain pressures. Our employees have worked hard through a challenging environment to sustain a culture of excellence, delivering industry-leading service levels for our utility and electrical customers, along with differentiated financial operating performance. The critical contributions of our employees and partners is what has led to a highly successful 2022 for all of our key stakeholders. Looking ahead, we believe that Hubbell's unique leading position in attractive markets will enable us to continue delivering on each of these fronts in 2023 and beyond. We will talk more in depth on our near-term outlook later in this presentation, but we anticipate continued market growth and strong execution, driving positive price-cost productivity to fund investments back into our business, which will generate long-term value for our customers while delivering attractive returns to our shareholders. Turning to page four, our fourth quarter results were generally consistent with year-to-date trends. Utility customers continued to invest in upgrading, hardening, and modernizing aging grid infrastructure. Orders continued to outpace shipments, and we exited 22 with record backlog levels, which gives us good visibility to continued growth in 2023. though continued investment is required to address areas of capacity constraint. In electrical solutions, orders and volumes softened in the fourth quarter as customers actively managed inventories and cash flow into year-end. These dynamics were anticipated and contemplated in the outlook we provided last October. Operationally, we expanded operating margins by over 200 basis points in the quarter, While the overall environment remains inflationary, easing raw material inflation and continued traction on price drove a net price-cost productivity benefit. Finally, we continued to accelerate our investment levels. Most notably, we invested over $60 million in capital expenditures in the fourth quarter as we were able to execute several large capacity and productivity projects. For the full year, we invested just under $130 million in capital expenditures, up $40 million from 21 levels. And we expect another year of elevated capex in 23, as we believe that these high return investments are the best current use of our shareholders' capital. So overall, the fourth quarter was a strong finish to a strong year for Hubbell. Let me now turn it over to Bill to provide you some more details on our performance.