Republic Services, Inc.

And welcome to the Republic Services fourth 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 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicole Giannotto, Senior Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services' fourth quarter 2019 conference call. Don Slager, our CEO, John Van Der Ark, 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 discussed today is time-sensitive. If in the future you listen to a rebroadcast or recording of this conference call, you should be sensitive to the date of the original call, which is February 13, 2020. 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 GAAP 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 their website. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Dawn.

Thank you, Nicole. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. We are very pleased with our strong finish to 2019. The hard work, passion, and commitment from our 36,000 employees enabled us to outperform our upwardly revised EPS and free cash flow guidance, despite continued headwinds from lowered recycled commodity prices. By successfully pricing in excess of cost inflation and In 2019, we expanded underlying EBITDA margin by 70 basis points and generated over $1.2 billion of adjusted free cash flow. For the full year, we invested over half a billion dollars in acquisitions and returned the remaining cash flow to our shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. we continue to believe that disciplined investment acquisitions with attractive returns is the best use of free cash flow to increase long-term shareholder value. Our strong finish to 2019 sets us up for continued success in 2020. Given the underlying momentum in our business, we are well positioned to deliver approximately 5% top-line revenue growth and nearly 6% EBITDA growth. On top of that, We are entering 2020 with one of the strongest acquisition pipelines we've seen in years. We will achieve our 2020 guidance by continuing to prioritize the safety of our people and communities above all else, attracting value-oriented customers to drive profitable volume growth, leveraging technology to empower our employees, increase connectivity with our customers, and drive operational excellence. And finally, continue to make disciplined acquisition investments to grow free cash flow and drive sustainable long-term value. These priorities represent the continued execution of our profitable growth through differentiation strategy. We believe our 2019 results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategy and our team's ability to consistently execute against it. For example, the most critical component to successfully executing our strategy is is our people. We believe that engaged and diverse workforce is the greatest indicator of our success. We know that our business units with higher employee engagement have fewer safety incidents, better customer service, and better financial performance. In 2019, we improved our overall employee engagement score by over 100 basis points to 86%, which is well above national norms and is high-performing for the industry. We also reduced driver turnover by 130 basis points versus the prior year. Moreover, the team continued to receive notable national awards and recognition of the inclusive culture we are building here at Republic. These results reflect the cumulative benefit of the investments we've made in our people over the last decade. We will continue to invest in our people and culture, which will further enhance our reputation as an employer of choice. Our strategy also includes investments to improve the customer experience, drive operational excellence, and enhance our leading market position. I'll turn the call over to John to walk you through our 2019 results in each of those strategic areas. John?