MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS

Welcome and thank you for standing by. Your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. At that time, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star 1. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. And now I'll turn the call over to Whit Kincaid.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Mueller Water Products' second quarter 2021 conference call. We issued our press release reporting results of operations for the quarter ended March 31, 2021, yesterday afternoon. A copy of the press release is available on our website, MuellerWaterProducts.com. Scott Hall, our President and CEO, and Marty Zakas, our CFO, will be discussing our second quarter results, market conditions, and our updated outlook for fiscal 2021. This morning's call was being recorded and webcast live on the Internet. We have also posted slides on our website to accompany today's discussion and 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. It 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 2 and 3 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 1-800-839-1190. The archived webcast and corresponding slides will be available for at least 90 days in the investor relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Whit. Thank you for joining us today. I hope everyone listening to our call continues to stay safe and healthy, and you are able to be vaccinated as we see the light at the end of the tunnel and emerge from the pandemic. Before turning the call over to Marty to discuss our second quarter results, I'll provide a brief overview of the quarter. We delivered a solid second quarter performance, resulting from our team members' focus on satisfying increasing demand despite continuing and new challenges from COVID-19 And inflation, especially material costs. Consolidated net sales exceeded our expectations as we reported a 3.8% increase in the quarter. Both infrastructure and technologies increased sales in the quarter. We increased net sales 1.5%, excluding the $6 million benefit from the elimination of Krause Industries' one month reporting lag. Net sales sequentially improved 12.7% versus the first quarter and compares with a 10.1% increase in net sales in the second quarter of last year. As a reminder, customers placed orders ahead of our effective date for price increases and as a result, shipments were particularly strong last year. We believe our end markets improved during the quarter as municipal spending continues to recover from the pandemic and residential construction continues to see strong demand for single-family homes. Similar to last quarter, are still experiencing a slowdown resulting from the pandemic. I remain impressed with our team members as they continue to do an outstanding job serving our customers. We experienced accelerating raw material inflation during the quarter, leading us to implement additional price increases during the quarter for the majority of our products, which will help margins as we move forward. Despite this near-term inflation headwind, Higher sales and improved manufacturing performance in the quarter led to a 50 basis point improvement in gross margin excluding the inventory write-down associated with the recently announced restructuring plans. I will address these actions later in the call. We generated $50.7 million in adjusted EBITDA in the quarter with a 19.4% adjusted EBITDA margin. Benefits from favorable manufacturing performance and higher pricing partially offset Accelerating Inflation and the Anticipated Increases in SG&A Expenses. I am very pleased with our cash generation this quarter, leading to a $72.4 million increase in free cash flow through the first six months of the year. Our teams remain focused on executing initiatives to deliver pricing actions, improve efficiencies, and improve working capital. We ended the quarter with nearly $230 million in cash and our net debt leverage ratio remains at 1.1 times versus 1.6 times in the prior year. Despite the ongoing operational challenges from the pandemic and accelerating inflation, we believe that end market demand will support further growth this year. Based on our strong first half performance, as well as expectations for our end market sales backlog, pricing and inflation for the rest of the year, We are raising our annual guidance for both consolidated net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth for 2021 for the second consecutive quarter. Later in the call, I will provide more color on some of our key strategies and markets and expectations for the rest of this year. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marty to review our second quarter results.