Republic Services, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Republic Services second quarter 2022 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 a 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 Aaron Evans, Vice President of Investor Relations.

I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services' second quarter 2022 conference call. John Vander Art, our CEO, and Brian DelGaccio, our CFO, for 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 involves risk 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 a recording of this conference call, you should be sensitive to the date of the original call, which is August 4, 2022. Please note that this call is 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 the recording of this call, are 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 and times, the dates, times, and presentations are posted on our website. With that, I would like to turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Aaron. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our second quarter results continue to demonstrate the value created by our differentiated capabilities and ability to harness the positive momentum in our business. We delivered outsized revenue growth both organically and through acquisitions while generating underlying margin expansion. This was achieved by pricing in excess of our internal cost inflation and continued savings from productivity initiatives. The fundamentals in our business remain strong, and we remain well positioned to capitalize on additional growth opportunities in the marketplace. During the second quarter, we delivered revenue growth of 21%, generated adjusting earnings per share of $1.32, which is a 21% increase over the prior year, and produced more than $1.1 billion of adjusted free cash flow on a year-to-date basis. which is a 14% increase over the prior year. We continue to effectively allocate capital by investing in value-creating acquisitions and returning cash to our shareholders. Year-to-date, we invested $2.5 billion in acquisitions, which includes the acquisition of U.S. Ecology. The integration of U.S. Ecology is well underway and progressing as planned. We are encouraged by early cross-selling results and remain confident that we will achieve at least $40 million of cost synergies. We have one of our most robust acquisition pipelines ever with opportunities to close transactions this year and into 2023. We now expect to invest over $600 million in acquisitions apart from U.S. Ecology for the year. Substantially, all of these deals are in the recycling and solid waste space. Year-to-date, we returned $495 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Additionally, we recently announced an increase to the dividend for the 19th consecutive year. During the second quarter, we reported organic volume growth of 2.4%, which was broad-based across geographies and market verticals. Simultaneously, we demonstrated our ability to price. Core price reached an all-time high of 6.2%, and average yield increased to 5%. This is the highest level of pricing in company history. At the same time, we are experiencing higher-than-expected inflationary pressures that continue to persist. That said, we expect to continue to price more than our internal cost inflation, ultimately leading to full-year results that are projected to exceed original expectations. We now expect adjusted EPS in a range of $4.77 to $4.80 and adjusted free cash flow in a range of $1.7 billion to $1.725 billion. This represents an increase of approximately 4% from the midpoint of the prior guidance. Finally, we believe creating a more sustainable world is both our responsibility and a platform for growth. We recently published our latest sustainability report, highlighting the progress we are making toward our most significant opportunities to positively impact key stakeholders and the environment. We reported a 9% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from our 2017 baseline, which keeps us well positioned to achieve our interim target of a 10% reduction by 2025. We also highlight progress made on climate leadership goals, including circular economy, and renewable energy. These goals are supported by investments we are making in polymer centers and landfill gas projects, which are progressing as planned. In addition to having a positive impact on the environment, these innovative solutions are a platform for growth. Our efforts continue to be recognized externally, as Republic was recently named to 3BL Media's 100 Best Corporate Citizens list for the third consecutive year. I will now turn the call over to Brian, who will provide details on the quarter.