Star Group L.P.

Welcome to the STAR Group Fiscal 2022 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing STAR, then 0. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press STAR, then 1 on a touch-tone 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 Alison Ziegler, Investor Relations Advisor.

Please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning. With me on the call today are Jeff Woosnam, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rich Ambury, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to provide a Reef Save 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. 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 30th, 2021, and the company's other filings with the SEC. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking 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, the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise after the date of this conference call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Jeff Wisdom. Jeff?

Thanks, Alison, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter and fiscal year-to-date results. The second quarter was rather challenging due to extreme volatility in the wholesale cost of home heating oil, which varied from $2.36 per gallon to as high as $4.44 per gallon during the period. It should come as no surprise that our working capital needs increased substantially, but fortunately, we were able to access $100 million of our seasonal working capital line, bringing the total to $400 million. However, the rapidly changing conditions impacted our ability to deliver the adjusted EBITDA results we would have otherwise expected, even as we believe we took the right steps to mitigate such headwinds as much as possible. The sudden and significant increase in wholesale product costs drove higher operating expenses in areas such as bad debt and credit card fees, while at the same time elevating customer price sensitivity. Heating oil and propane margins did rise by 3.2 cents versus the prior year, but this increase was not sufficient to offset the impact of the higher operating expenses and a shortfall in volume, which Rich will review further in a moment. We remain as keenly focused on reducing customer attrition and churn as ever, especially as we navigate through this period of extreme price volatility. I'm pleased to report that during the quarter, Star purchased one small heating oil dealer and in April purchased another, adding approximately 5.5 million gallons in aggregate of annual volume. Both companies are well-established, full-service businesses located within our current operating footprint. We continue to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities that align with our growth strategy to strengthen and broaden our brand portfolio. Overall, despite the unique challenges that the second quarter presented, we're certain that the steps we have taken to improve the company over the past three years, which include removing unnecessary overhead expense, improving the customer experience, and placing us in a better competitive position, have made Star a stronger and more resilient business, better prepared and able to respond to these types of conditions. As we navigate through the remainder of fiscal 2022, I'm confident in our ability to continue to provide the best possible customer experience and improve bottom line results, even as we remain vigilant in monitoring and addressing inflationary pressures across many aspects of our business. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rich to provide additional comments on the quarter's results.