Star Group L.P.

Today, and welcome to the STAR Group Fiscal 2020 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. All participants 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 Chris Witty, our investor relations moderator. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. With me on the call today are Jeff Woosnam, Chief Executive Officer, and Rich Ambury, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to provide a brief safe harbor statement. This conference call may include forward-looking statements that represent the company's expectations and beliefs concerning future events that involve risks and uncertainties and may cause the company's actual performance to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this conference call are forward-looking statements, including those related to the impact of COVID-19 on the company. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company's expectations are disclosed in this conference call, the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2019, and in the company's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2020. All subsequent written and oral forelooking statements attributable to the company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statement. Unless otherwise required by law, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jeff Woosnam.

Jeff? Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. As we conclude the second quarter of fiscal 2020, Star Group, like many companies, is managing through a number of unforeseen challenges related to the current pandemic and associated economic downturn. The outbreak of COVID-19 has clearly had an impact on the way we operate, largely from a safety and logistical standpoint, but I'm pleased to report that we still achieved solid results for the quarter. Gross margins rose, helped by falling oil prices, operating costs were reduced by $20 million year over year, and weather hedge worked as anticipated, all resulting in an increase in EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA of $7 million or 8% for the quarter. Net customer attrition also declined during the quarter, to 1.2% from 2.2% a year ago, evidence of our continued focus on operating fundamentals and improving the customer experience. Our overall performance was particularly encouraging given that temperatures were 18.2% warmer than in 2019. Now a year into the appointment of our new management team, I am quite pleased with our progress and believe that the strategies we have implemented are taking a firm hold and producing measurable improvements and both our financial performance and our net customer position. With regard to COVID-19, because STAR has been classified as an essential business in every state in which we operate, we are fortunate to be less impacted than many other industries or companies. However, that does not mean that we are unaffected or that we don't have employees impacted by the pandemic. Over the past eight weeks, we have implemented a number of adjustments in the way we operate and measures designed to protect both our employees, and our customers. These measures include but are not limited to leveraging technology to allow more employees to work from home, conducting advanced telephone screenings of all service and sales appointments, and temporarily reducing non-emergency service visits. We are closely monitoring all official pronouncements and executive orders concerning our status as an essential business. I couldn't be more proud and appreciative of how our employees have responded to what is certainly a very difficult and unique set of circumstances. They've remained 100% focused and committed to serving our customers, and as a result, our service levels continue to be high, as do all of our internal customer satisfaction indicators. While it's difficult to anticipate exactly what challenges or opportunities lie ahead, I am very confident that Star is well positioned to navigate through the uncharted territory in the months to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rich to provide additional comments on the quarter. Rich?