Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation

Good morning and welcome to WACCAC's second quarter 2020 pre-earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. If 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. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Christine Gavacki, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. and welcome to Wabtec's second quarter 2023 earnings call. With us today are President and CEO Rafael Santana, CFO John Olin, and Senior Vice President of Finance John Mastelers. Today's slide presentation, along with our earnings release and financial disclosures, were posted to our website earlier today and can be accessed on Investor Relations tab on wabtecscorp.com. Some statements we're making are forward-looking, and based on our best view of the world and our business today. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions related to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and presentation. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to read our disclosures and reconciliation tables carefully as you consider these metrics. I will now turn the call over to Rafael.

Thanks, Christine, and good morning, everyone. Let's move to slide four. I'll start with an update on our business, my perspectives on the quarter, and progress against our long-term value creation framework. And then John will cover the financials. We delivered another strong quarter, evidenced by robust sales and earnings per share growth. We achieved these despite continued volatility and economic challenges. Sales were $2.41 billion, which was up 17.5% versus prior year. Revenue was driven by strong performance from both the freight and transit segments. Total cash flow from operations was $115 million. Overall, our financial position remains strong. We continue to execute against our capital allocation framework to maximize shareholder value by investing for the future growth, executing on the strategic M&A, like our recent acquisition of L&M, and returning cash to shareholders. The 12-month backlog was $7.2 billion, up 10%, signifying growing momentum and visibility across the business. The total multi-year backlog was $22.4 billion. Overall, the WAPTEC team delivered a strong second quarter, marking a good first half of 2023. Looking forward, I'm encouraged by the underlying strength and robust momentum across the business. WAPTAC is well positioned to continue driving profitable growth even amidst a challenging economy. Shifting our focus to slide five, let's talk about our 2023 end market expectations for more details. As we look at key metrics across our freight business, we remain encouraged by the underlying business momentum and our robust pipeline of opportunities across geographies. North America car loads continue to be down in the quarter, and locomotive parkings moved up slightly as we exited the second quarter, but better than we had anticipated as customers prioritized service and fluidity. We continue to see significant opportunities across the globe in demand for new locomotives, modernizations, and digital solutions as our customers invest in solutions that continue to drive reliability, productivity, and fuel efficiency. Looking at the North American railcar builds, demand for railcar continues to show growth. The industry outlook for 2023 is for about 45,000 cars to be delivered. Overall, we believe we have an opportunity to continue building significant long-term momentum with growth in modernizations, new locomotive sales, railcar builds, and digital solutions. Internationally, activity is strong in core markets, such as Brazil, Australia, India, and the CIS region. Significant investments to expand and upgrade infrastructure are supporting a very strong international order pipeline. Finally, moving to the transit sector, the megatrends remain in place, driving the need for clean, safe, and efficient transportation solutions around the globe. Next, Let's turn to slide six to discuss a few recent business highlights. In North America, we secured several key wins, including orders for 30 new locomotives, an order for 69 locomotives under our certified pre-owned program, and an order for 60 modernizations from Canadian National that closed after the end of the quarter. In Australia, We recently won a strategic order for 17 locomotives from CBH, which will support the continued growth of agricultural commodities in the region. And with regards to our zero emissions portfolio, we also recently signed a strategic order with Volley for three flex-drive locomotives. These locomotives will pull the world's largest iron ore train and is expected to remove 63,000 tons of carbon, the equivalent of 14,000 passenger cars per year. In transit, we want a major order to supply passenger information systems and pantographs for up to 504 Stadler cars for Germany and Austria. And finally, during June, we completed the full-tone acquisition of L&M. This strategic acquisition will enhance WAPTEC's existing heat transfer and it will extend our install base in mining, providing a solid platform for domestic and international profitable growth. All of this demonstrates the growing momentum across the business, the team's relentless focus on delivering for our customers, and the strong pipeline of opportunities we continue to execute on. WAPTEC is well-positioned to continue to capture profitable growth with innovative and scalable technologies that address our customers' most pressing needs. Turning to slide seven, I'd like to highlight how WAPTEC will provide efficient solutions for our customers by driving their productivity, reducing fuel consumption, and improving safety, while leading the decarbonization of rail across the industry. WAPTEC is uniquely positioned to shape a more sustainable future for rail by inventing and developing technologies that provide customers with adaptable and efficient solutions to meet their carbon reduction goals while providing strong investment returns to our customers given improved reliability, holdability, and fuel efficiency. Ultimately, we will help lead the industry towards a zero emissions rail network And we have already started laying that path to get there through new locomotives, modernizations with advancements in utilizing renewable and biofuels, leading in battery electric applications, investing in hydrogen technology, and providing a wide range of digital solutions. With that, I'll turn the call over to John to reveal the quarter segment results and our overall financial performance. John?