Star Group L.P.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the STAR Group fiscal 2023 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 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 and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Chris Witte, the Investor Relations Advisor. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. With me on the call today are Jeff Woosnam, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rich Amberry, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to provide a brief safe harbor statement. This conference call may include four looking statements that represent the company's expectations and beliefs concerning future events that involve risks and uncertainties, It 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 30, 2022, 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 statements. 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 Woosnam.

Jeff? Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter and fiscal year-to-date results. As the largest provider of home heating oil in the nation, our business remains highly dependent on weather, and the second quarter was particularly challenging due to the mild temperatures experienced throughout our footprint. To put this in perspective, not only were temperatures 22 percent warmer than normal, but the period was also the warmest in New York City in 123 years. Year-to-date, it was the fourth warmest period on record in this key market. While there's nothing we can do to influence Mother Nature, we are adept at mitigating, to every extent possible, unusual weather swings like this, managing costs and working capital, and adjusting short-term investment decisions. At the same time, our weather hedge program worked as intended and provided an important buffer under such conditions, as did our disciplined approach to controlling operating expenses, even in the face of certain inflationary pressures. The warmer temperatures also negatively impacted our net customer attrition during the period. Due to our size and scale, we are often in a position to add new customers as a result of various service-related disruptions brought on peak seasonal demand, usually in January and February. The warmer-than-normal temperatures that we experienced in these months, however, significantly muted this activity, thus reducing the opportunity to win over new accounts. While we did not complete any acquisitions in the quarter, our team has remained very busy evaluating various energy organizations that align with our goal of strengthening and broadening our portfolio of brands. Our acquisition program remains an important part of our growth strategy. Given the various headwinds encountered through the first half of fiscal 2023, I am pleased with our overall performance, including adjusted EBIT of $151 million, which is generally in line with the same period last year, as well as slightly improved net customer attrition. We achieved this despite weather that was 7% warmer than fiscal 2022 and 16% warmer than normal. While April's temperatures were also quite warm, I remain confident in our ability to provide the best possible customer experience and continue to proactively adjust our operations to ensure that we effectively deal with any changes or opportunities that may present themselves as we navigate through the summer months. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rich to provide additional comments on the quarter.