Republic Services, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Republic Services Third Quarter 2021 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. 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 Stacey Matthews, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Hello. I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services' third quarter 2021 conference call. John Van Der Ark, our CEO, 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 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 recording of this conference call, you should be sensitive to the date of the original call, which is October 28th, 2021. 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'd like to turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Stacy. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased with our strong performance in the third quarter. We continue to execute on our strategic priorities of customer zeal, digital, and sustainability to drive growth and value for our stakeholders. During the third quarter, we delivered revenue and EBITDA growth of approximately 14% compared to the prior year, generated adjusting earnings per share of $1.11, which represents an increase of 11 percent over the prior year and produced $1.4 billion of adjusted free cash flow on a year-to-date basis. We continue to effectively allocate capital by investing in value-creating acquisitions and returning excess cash to our shareholders. Year-to-date, we've invested over $900 million in acquisitions to further enhance our market position and increase free cash flow. This is the highest level of acquisition investment in over a decade. On August 31st, we completed the acquisition of ACV Enviro. This strategic acquisition broadens our capabilities and offerings in the environmental services industry. It also provides us with a platform to pursue additional growth. We are excited to welcome ACV to the Republic team. Our acquisition pipeline remains robust, with opportunities in both the recycling and solid waste and the environmental solutions businesses. We now expect to invest over a billion dollars in acquisitions for the full year. In addition to investing in acquisitions, we have returned $622 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We continue to prioritize customer zeal to drive profitable growth. This includes increasing customer loyalty, driving willingness to pay, and attracting new volume as the provider of choice. Our customer retention rate remains at a record-setting level of 95%. During the third quarter, we delivered outsized revenue growth throughout our business. Total core price remained at an all-time high of 5.2%, and average yield increased to 3.2%. Volume increased 4.3% compared to the prior year, which exceeded our expectations, and acquisitions contributed an incremental 350 basis points to total revenue growth. The outlook for organic and acquisition growth for the remainder of the year is strong. Turning to digital, we continue to realize the benefits of our investments in technology. In the third quarter, we made meaningful progress in the rollout of the next phase of our RISE platform. We have now implemented tablets in approximately 70% of our large and small container fleet. We expect to be substantially complete by the end of this year with plans to further deploy to the residential fleet beginning in 2022. Next, turning to our sustainability platform. We continue to partner with developers to capitalize on landfill gas to energy opportunities. We currently have 17 projects in the pipeline with more opportunities thereafter. On top of the royalty revenue these plants will generate, a majority of equity investment opportunities to further participate in the project economics. We also recently opened a solar project on one of our closed landfills in Bellevue, Illinois. This project consists of 30,000 solar panels and will produce enough energy to power 2,200 homes annually. We remain committed to increasing the recycling and circularity of key materials as part of our ambitious 2030 sustainability goals. We recently opened the first solar-powered compost facility in California to further our progress and address the growing community needs. This facility will provide critical organic processing capabilities to residents and businesses in the greater San Diego area. Our strong financial and operational results would not have been possible without our dedicated Republic employees. We continue to invest in developing both existing and new talent, and creating innovative solutions for the increased demand for skilled workers. We recently unveiled our Republic Services Technical Institute, which is the industry's first ever diesel technician school. This subsidized program is already building a strong pipeline of high demand technician talent for Republic. Additionally, graduates will have upskilling opportunities to further grow their career with Republic. These types of innovative investments and talent lead to external recognition for our company. Republic was recently certified as a great place to work for the fifth consecutive year. This is a meaningful achievement as employee recruiting and retention remains a prominent focus in today's labor market. Finally, turning to our outlook for the remainder of the year. Given the continued strength in our business, we now expect to exceed the full year guidance we upwardly revised last quarter. Accordingly, we are increasing 2021 full-year financial guidance as follows. Adjusted EPS is now expected to be in the range of $410 to $413, and adjusted free cash flow is now expected to be in the range of $1.475 billion to $1.5 billion. I will now turn the call over to Brian.