MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS

Welcome, and thank you for standing by. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, if you'd like to ask a question, you may press star 1 on your phone. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Whit Kincaid. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Mueller Water Products' first quarter 2020 conference call. We issued our press release reporting results of operations for the quarter ended December 31, 2019, yesterday afternoon. A copy of it is available on our website, MuellerWaterProducts.com. Discussing the first quarter's results and our outlook for 2020 are Scott Hall, our President and CEO, and Marty Zakas, our CFO. This morning's call is being recorded and webcast live on the internet. We have also posted slides on our website to help illustrate the quarter's results, as well as to address forward-looking statements and our non-GAAP disclosure requirements. At this time, please refer to slide 2. This slide identifies non-GAAP financial measures referenced in our press release, on our slides, and on this call and discloses the reasons why we believe that these measures provide useful information to investors. Reconciliations between non-GAAP and GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental information within our press release and on our website. Slide 3 addresses forward-looking statements made on this call. This slide includes cautionary information identifying important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in forward-looking statements. Please review slides two and three in their entirety. During this call, all references to a specific year or quarter, unless specified otherwise, refer to our fiscal year, which ends on September 30th. A replay of this morning's call will be available for 30 days at 1-866-441-8817. The archived webcast and corresponding slides will be available for at least 90 days in the Investor Relations section of our website. In addition, we will furnish a copy of our prepared remarks on Form 8-K later this morning. I'll now turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Whit. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter results for 2020. We had a very good start to 2020 as we generated solid, organic, consolidated net sales growth, Improved margins and increased adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. Our net sales increased 10.3%, driven by the benefit of the Krause acquisition, with organic net sales increasing 3.1%. Both higher pricing and increased shipment volumes of our core infrastructure products drove our organic net sales increase. We increased our gross margin by 290 basis points to over 34% in the quarter. Higher pricing, favorable product mix, and the addition of Krause more than offset increased costs from tariffs and inflation. Both infrastructure and technologies contributed to the gross margin improvement in the quarter. I was especially pleased to see technologies achieve break-even adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. This performance and the addition of Krause helped deliver nearly 20% consolidated adjusted EBITDA growth. During the quarter, we settled the Walter Energy tax liability with a $22.2 million payment to the IRS. After a significant effort managing and resolving a complex situation over the past four years regarding the obligation of our one-time parent company, we can finally put this matter behind us. For fiscal 2020, we expect to see continued favorable demand in our end markets driven by healthy municipal spending and improved residential construction. However, we remain cautiously optimistic due to continued uncertainty from global and domestic matters. After a solid start to the year, we are increasing our expectations for both net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth for fiscal 2020, which I will discuss in more detail later in the call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marty.