Republic Services, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Republic Services Second Quarter 2020 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 touchtone phone. So we'll draw 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 Giannino, Senior Vice President of Business Transformation and Communications. Nicole?

Hi. I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services' second quarter 2020 conference call. Don Slager, our CEO, John Van Der Ark, our president, and Brian DelGaccio, 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 discussed 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 August 6, 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 a gap reconciliation table, and a discussion of business activities, along with the 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 resiliency of our business, the power of our operating model, and the strength of our cash flow. We delivered strong results in the second quarter by leveraging the solid foundation we built over the last decade. During the quarter, we increased adjusted earnings per share, delivered double-digit growth in adjusted free cash flow and expanded adjusted EBITDA margin, 170 basis points to 29.6%. I'm proud of the results the team delivered and truly inspired by their dedication to the Republic Way. Our leaders are working tirelessly to keep our people safe, adjust our operations to changing demand, and ensure consistent, reliable service to our customers. Our frontline employees continue to show up every day for our customers and each other. And our support personnel quickly adjusted to a new way of working. It was the collective effort of all 36,000 employees that delivered these results. Our economic outlook is positive. Since April, total volume has increased month over month through July. In our small container business, We are seeing a similar volume trend. Additionally, container weights increased sequentially through July, indicating steady improvement in consumption and economic activity. As always, we are running our business for the long term and continue to make investments to enhance the customer experience, improve the efficiency of our operations, and strengthen our market position. These investments will position us well for future growth. In the second quarter, we continue to effectively allocate capital by investing in value-creating acquisitions and returning excess cash to shareholders. Year-to-date, we've invested $124 million in acquisitions to further enhance our market position and grow free cash flow. Our deal pipeline continues to be strong, and we remain on track to invest $600 to $650 million in acquisitions this year. In July, our board approved the 5% increase in the quarterly dividend. The consistent growth in the dividend demonstrates the stability and predictability of our cash flows, as well as our confidence in delivering future cash flow growth. And year-to-date, we've returned $99 million to our shareholders through share repurchases and have approximately $600 million remaining on our share repurchase authorization. We now have greater clarity on how the pandemic impacts our business and how we can continue to adjust operations and effectively manage spending. As a result, we are reinstating our full year adjusted free cash flow guidance. We expect to generate adjusted free cash flow of $1.1 billion to $1.175 billion. Our ability to achieve the low end of our original free cash flow guidance demonstrates the tenacity of our team, the flexibility of our operating model, and the strength and stability of our free cash flow. As an essential service provider, we play a critical role in our communities. This starts by providing uninterrupted service regardless of the circumstances and being a responsible and ethical partner in the community. This quarter, we were recognized for our efforts and were named to 3BL Media's 100 Best Corporate Citizens list for the first time. For this list, 1,000 of the largest U.S. public companies were evaluated and ranked based on transparency and performance across 141 environmental, social, and governance factors. Lastly, we recently published our 2019 Sustainability Report. which highlights the progress we are making on our most significant opportunities to positively impact our customers, employees, communities, shareholders, and the environment. I would encourage you to give it a look. It's a great read. Now I'll turn the call over to John.