MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS

Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time, all participants are in 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 turn the call over to Whit Kincaid, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Mueller Water Products' first quarter 2022 conference call. We issued our press release reporting results of operations for the quarter ended December 31st, 2021, yesterday afternoon. A copy of the press release is available on our website, MuellerWaterProducts.com. Scott Hall, our President and CEO, and Marty Zakis, our CFO, will be discussing our first quarter results, market conditions, and our current outlook for 2022. This morning's call is 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. As a reminder, we have changed our management structure and segment reporting effective October 1, 2021. We filed an 8 in January where we provided the recast of historical quarterly results for 2020 and 2021. This is our first quarter reporting our news segments with water flow solutions and water management solutions. At this time, please refer to slide two. 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 for investors. Reconciliations between non-GAAP and GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental information within our press release and on our website. Slide three 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 the 30th of September. A replay of this morning's call will be available for 30 days at 1-866-431-2903. 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, Witt. Thank you for joining us today. I hope everyone listening to our call continues to stay safe and healthy. I am very encouraged by the start to our year as our team members delivered strong net sales growth in the quarter while continuing to face challenges from an extraordinarily difficult operating environment. Net sales growth of both segments benefited from increased volumes and higher pricing across most of our product lines. With healthy demand levels in our primary end markets, we again experienced strong orders in the quarter leading to record backlog at the end of the quarter. we remain focused on serving customers in the face of the continuing operational challenges from higher inflation, labor availability, and supply chain disruptions. Despite these obstacles that have increased costs, adjusted EBITDA increased 6.3% in the quarter. The anticipated margin compression this quarter primarily resulted from the lag between the timing of inflation and our price realization. Due to the ongoing inflationary pressures, we again increased prices across the majority of our products during the first quarter, which along with the pricing actions we took in 2021, we believe will help improve margins. We have a strong balance sheet in cash position, finishing the quarter with over $200 million in cash outstanding and net debt leverage of 1.2 times. During the quarter, we generated positive free cash flow and repurchased $20 million of common stock. Most importantly, based on our solid first quarter performance, we are raising our annual guidance for both consolidated net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth. While we expect challenges associated with higher inflation, supply chain disruptions, and labor availability to continue in 2022, we are confident that we can make progress on our operational initiatives to deliver enhanced results. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marty to discuss our first quarter results.