Hubbell Inc

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Hubble's third quarter 2023 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. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star 1-1 again. I would now like to hand the call over to VP of Investor Relations, Dan Inamorato.

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 third quarter of 2023. 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, Gerben 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 is 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 and are included in the press release and slides. Now let me turn the call over to Gervin.

Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss Hubble's third quarter results. Third quarter results demonstrate continued execution off of strong first half and multi-year performance. Price realization remains strong as prior actions to offset inflation continue to stick in the marketplace, supported by our leading position and service levels in attractive markets. Additionally, improved productivity and lower year-over-year raw material costs also contributed to another quarter of significant operating margin expansion. As anticipated, we accelerated our investments in capacity, productivity, and innovation initiatives in the third quarter to drive long-term returns for shareholders. We expect that grid modernization and electrification will continue to drive GDP-plus growth in our markets over the next several years. and Hubbell is uniquely positioned to solve these critical infrastructure needs for our customers in front and behind the meters. These investments we are making in the second half of this year will effectively position the company to capitalize on these visible growth opportunities through best-in-class quality and service, as well as through the introduction of new products and solutions. More near-term, we detailed last quarter how normalizing supply chain dynamics have enabled improved manufacturing lead times and allowed our channel partners to normalize their order patterns in response to more predictable product availability. This process continued in the third quarter. Bill will walk you through more of the details in a few minutes, but overall, we continue to view this as a natural outcome of supply chain normalization. Broadly, our sell-through to end markets remains healthy, and our positions with our customers remain strong. We anticipate that we will be mostly through this normalization process as we exit 2023. Our visibility to continued strong operating performance gives us the confidence that we can navigate effectively through the fourth quarter to deliver at the upper half of our prior guidance range. As we look ahead to 2024, we believe we are well positioned to drive profitable growth off of a strong multi-year performance base. And I will share some more color around our early planning considerations for next year at the end of the prepared remarks. Before I turn the call over to Bill, Hubbell announced in a press release yesterday the acquisition of Systems Control for $1.1 billion. And you'll note in today's presentation materials that we've also closed on a bolt-on acquisition of Belastro. Both of these acquisitions are high-quality businesses with strong strategic fits that enhance our industry-leading platform of utility components, communications, and controls. Systems Control is a leading manufacturer of mission-critical substation protection and control solutions. The business is complementary to our portfolio and enhances our leading value proposition to our core utility customer base. Substation automation is an attractive space within the utility market as control and relay solutions are critical to upgrading and protecting age infrastructure while also enabling the integration of renewables and the electrification of the grid. Systems control has a proven business model and a demonstrated track record of delivering value for customers and financial performance that will enhance Hubbell's long-term growth and margin profile. Celestro is a leading manufacturer of high-quality utility arresters and insulators that bolts on well to our existing portfolio. Importantly, this acquisition also provides us with additional manufacturing capacity that will enable incremental output in a constrained USD&D market. Bill will provide more color on both of these acquisitions in a few minutes, but we are very pleased to deploy capital to acquire attractive businesses like these that will drive strong return and strong long-term value for our customers and shareholders. With that, let me turn it over to Bill to walk you through the details of the quarter.