Waters Corporation

Good morning. Welcome to the Waters Corporation Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of the call. This conference is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, please disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn over the call to Mr. Brian Brockmeyer, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Waters Corporation Second quarter earnings conference call. Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. During the course of this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. In particular, we will provide commentary on potential market and business conditions the company expects for the third quarter and full year 2020. We caution you that all such statements are only our present expectations and that actual events or results may differ materially. For a detailed discussion of some of the risks and contingencies that may cause our actual performance to differ significantly from our present expectations, see the risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2019 in Part 1 under the caption Risk Factors and in our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 28th, 2020 in Part 1 under the caption Risk Factors. both of which are on file with the SEC as well as the cautionary language included in this morning's press release including with respect to risks related to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on our business. We further caution you that the company does not intend to update any of its predictions or projections except during our regularly scheduled quarterly earnings release conference calls and webcasts or as otherwise required by law. Next earnings release call and webcast is currently planned for October 27, 2020. During today's call, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release issue this morning and available on the company's website. In our discussions of the results of operations, we may refer to non-GAAP results which exclude the impact of items such as those outlined in our schedule titled Reconciliation of GAAP to Adjusted Non-GAAP Financials included in this morning's press release. Unless stated otherwise, references to quarterly results increasing or decreasing in comparison to the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. In addition, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-year revenue growth rates including revenue growth ranges given on today's call are given on a comparable constant currency basis. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dr. Flemming Ornskoff, Waters Chairman of the Board, to make a few brief comments. Flemming?

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. I wanted to join at the beginning of this call for two reasons. First, to thank Chris for his contribution to Waters. And second, to discuss our leadership transition process and the appointment of Udi Batra as Waters' next CEO. I want to begin by thanking Chris for his leadership over the last five years and for his commitment to ensuring a seamless leadership transition through the end of this year. Over the course of the last few months, which have been particularly challenging against the background of the global pandemic, Chris has kept the team focused on execution. Throughout his tenure, Chris has demonstrated a clear commitment to advancing a new product cycle that has in part helped us establish a strong foundation for growth. As you know, on July 15th, we announced that Udit will be joining us on September 1st. Udit is a highly accomplished executive with more than two decades of leadership and operational expertise in our industry. He has demonstrated a proven track record of delivering tangible financial and operational results as evidenced by his prior roles at Merck KGA headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. Importantly, he also has a strong appreciation for our purpose, culture, and people. We are confident he will help waters built on our foundation and Usha in our next chapter of innovation, growth, and shareholder value. I know Udit is eager to get going, and we look forward to introducing him when he officially joins us in September. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris and Sherry to conduct the earnings call and Q&A.