Republic Services, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Republic Services second quarter 2019 investor conference call. Republic Services is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RSG. All participants in today's call will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicole Giudonotto, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer.

Thank you, Allison. I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services' second quarter 2019 conference call. Don Slager, our CEO, John VanderArk, our president, and Chuck Sirianni, our CFO, are joining me as we discuss our performance. I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that some of the information we discuss on today's call contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, and may be materially different from actual results. Our SEC filings discuss factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The material that we discuss today is time sensitive. If in the future you listen to a rebroadcast or rerecording of this conference call, you should be sensitive to the date of the original call, which is July 25th, 2019. Please note that this call is the property of Republic Services, Inc., Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Republic Services is strictly prohibited. I want to point out that our SEC filings, our earnings press release, which includes gap reconciliation tables, and a discussion of business activities, along with a recording of this call, are all available on Republic's website at republicservices.com. I want to remind you that Republic's management team routinely participates in investor conferences. When events are scheduled, the dates, times, and presentations are posted on our website. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Don.

Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are extremely pleased with our second quarter results, which clearly demonstrate the underlying strength of our business. During the quarter, we successfully priced in excess of our cost inflation, achieved EBITDA margin expansion of 50 basis points, and increased earnings per share by 8%. We expect the strong momentum in the first half of the year to continue. As a result, we are reaffirming our original full-year EPS and free cash flow guidance provided in February despite continued declines in recycled commodity prices. During the second quarter, commodity markets continue to be challenged. We overcame these headwinds by focusing our efforts on things we can control. In particular, transitioning to a more durable, economically sustainable recycling business model. As you'll hear from John, we are making good progress and seeing results. For example, The revenue and EBITDA impact of lower recycled commodity prices in the second quarter was $8 million. Because of the team's relentless efforts, we overcame this headwind and increased recycling revenue 6 percent versus the prior year. In the second quarter, we invested $129 million in acquisitions to further enhance our leading market position and drive growth in free cash flow. Our current deal pipeline continues to be strong. As a result, we now expect to invest approximately $550 million in acquisitions this year. We estimate these acquisitions, net of divestitures, will provide 125 to 150 basis points of top-line revenue growth in 2019. During the quarter, we also continued our balanced approach of returning cash to shareholders. We returned $213 million through dividends and share repurchases. Additionally, our board approved an 8% increase in the quarterly dividend, in line with our 10-year dividend CAGR. The consistent growth in the dividend demonstrates the stability and predictability of our cash flow as well as our confidence in the future cash flow generation capabilities of our business. Through the consistent execution of our profitable growth through differentiation strategy, we have created a solid foundation for our business. We are leveraging this foundation to deliver results and increase long-term shareholder value. Our second quarter results clearly demonstrate this. Next, turning to our people. In recent years, Our efforts to create an environment that attracts and retains the best talent have been recognized by reputable third parties, such as Barron's, Ethisphere, and Glassdoor. Most recently, Republic Services was named to Forbes' list of best employers for women. I would like to thank our team for their relentless efforts to create a more inclusive culture and an environment in which all individuals feel welcomed and valued. Finally, we believe as we grow the business, so does our potential to drive change and positively impact the environment and society overall. We know we can do more and are raising the bar through our latest long-term sustainability goals, which we announced last week. Through the pursuit of achievement and achievement of these goals, we will further enhance the foundation of our business and continue to create a long-term value for our employees, our customers, communities, and shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to John to discuss our second quarter operating performance. John?